Anti-vaccine activists online continue hammering their argument, claiming they had always been right, says fact-checker Tommaso Canetta. He edits fact-checking briefs for the European Digital Media Observatory, where they monitor how COVID, climate and war disinformation ebbs and flows.
Pandemic has revealed vulnerabilities in Baltic States’ combat against disinformation
The Baltic States have set up systems to identify, monitor and confront disinformation linked to Russia. But the uptake of COVID conspiracies show that disinformation actors exploit vulnerabilities in our societies. After all, as discussed in the previous blog post on, conspiracists hitch multiple ideologies onto the first one they manage to push through. Listen to our podcast featuring disinformation …
Interview with a Swedish journalist who infiltrated the antivaxx movement
Ever since a speaker at Dataharvest mentioned the SVT team’s investigation into the anti-vaccination movement, I wanted to interview someone from this team and ask what it was like. The Swedish team started their investigation at a similar time as Eva and I started ours, but instead of spreading wide in Europe they traced influences all the way to US …
Anti-vaccination movements, their connections and funding
In this episode of The Inoculation podcast Eva and I talk to Dr Aliaksandr Herasimenka about his findings on the global connections and funding sources of anti-vaccination movements. If you’re interested in this topic, do subscribe to our weekly newsletter – after all, newsletter subscriptions are better than social media.
New articles and research on vaccine mandates and vaccine hesitancy
Our selected readings and comments
The big vaccine gamble
EU countries agreed to pre-book several vaccines together. But the (now former) prime minister of Slovakia decided to act when the Western vaccines wouldn’t come fast enough. This cost him his post. Learn what happened on the latest episode of our podcast, produced with help from award-winning Slovak journalist Lukáš Onderčanin. Lukáš and I met on a press trip to …
Italy shows what the stakes of vaccine hesitancy can be
When my colleague Eva and I drafted our project before the pandemic, we thought we would definitely include Italy in our itinerary and talk to parents and doctors about living with widespread vaccine hesitancy, also promoted by certain politicians. It took us a while because we had to take our research online, but I am proud to present this collaborative …
Vaccine ‘space race’
The media reported today that French-speaking ‘influencers’ on social networks have been approached by a dubious PR agency to promote negative messages about the Comirnaty (Pfizer) vaccine (I saw it on Twitter and then it was reported here). In this episode, Eva and I talk to experts who have been collecting data about how false claims about vaccines link to …
Vaccine conversation tips from international reporters
Laura Oliver talked to numerous international reporters to glean suggestions for reporting on vaccines. But our podcast episode is not just for reporters – as we discuss visuals, fact-checks and tone when engaging in a politically charged conversations about vaccines, I think everyone who is having these conversations with their family and friends will find useful tips. Listen and subscribe!
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