Anti-vaxxers are adopting new tactics

In May, Instagram announced that it would block hashtags that promote “verifiably false” information about vaccines. The move came after similar efforts from other social media platforms to restrict vaccine misinformation.

But anti-vaxxers have developed some clever workarounds to Instagram’s restrictions.

Coda Story reported Dec. 6 that anti-vaxxers have started using coded hashtags to continue promoting the false belief that vaccines are dangerous. Prior to Instagram’s announcement, anti-vaccine users promoted posts with hashtags like #vaccineskill, whereas now, users are using abstruse hashtags like #learntherisk and #justasking.

“Tactics like spelling vaccines with a cedilla (vaççines) or using a bracket (va((ines) to try to avoid detection by Instagram also proliferate on the platform,” Coda Story wrote.

Another way anti-vaxxers have tried to dupe Instagram’s controls is to co-opt the language used primarily by abortion rights advocates, such as #righttochoose and #mybodymychoice. And it’s not just online.

NBC News reported Dec. 6 that anti-vaccine organizers have been harassing legislators and doctors in person. Similar to how anti-abortion protesters will stake out women’s health clinics to heckle patients, some anti-vaxxers have started to confront parents outside of doctors’ offices.

“Some of the protesters sat with signs, while others stuck anti-vaccine propaganda under car windshield wipers in the parking lot,” NBC wrote about one demonstration on Long Island, New York, in October. “Several approached parents entering the building with their infants, asking, ‘Are you vaccinating your baby?’”

The backdrop for those demonstrations, which used to be almost entirely online, is a global outbreak of measles. In Samoa, the preventable illness has led to more than 65 deaths — and the reason why has to do with vaccine skepticism there.

“Whereas flawed health-care systems have been associated with surges in measles cases in some countries, the key reason for Samoa’s woes appear rooted in recent anti-vaccine activism, which pushed vaccination rates to dangerously low levels,” The Washington Post reported Dec. 6.

To try to abate the health crisis, Samoa made the measles vaccine mandatory and arrested anti-vaccine campaigners. In response, anti-vaxxers started leaving one-star reviews for the country’s government on Facebook.

If these events tell us anything, it’s that anti-vaxxers are among the most coordinated — and dangerous — misinformers on the internet. And as they continue to refine their coordination tactics and take them offline, they have real potential to affect ongoing public health crises.