Vaccines, Misinformation, And The Internet (Part 2)

Short Wave

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🗓️ 27 February 2020

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

In the second of two episodes exploring anti-vaccine misinformation online, Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory explains why the Internet is so good at spreading bad information, and what big tech platforms are starting to do about it. Listen to the prior episode to hear more from Renee, and the story of pediatrician Nicole Baldwin, whose pro-vaccine TikTok video made her the target of harassment and intimidation from anti-vaccine activists online.

You can see Dr. Baldwin's original TikTok here.

Renee DiResta has written about how some anti-vaccine proponents harass, intimidate, and spread misinformation online here and here.

Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:06.1	If you missed yesterday's episode, you missed the story of Cincinnati pediatrician Nicole
0:10.3	Baldwin and TikTok.
0:13.5	So I like the music.
0:15.3	I think it's super fun to watch people being goofy and dancing and all that kind of stuff.
0:21.2	TikTok is a social media app where people basically do that.
0:24.7	Be goofy to music.
0:26.5	So who follows you on TikTok, you know?
0:30.1	My daughter.
0:31.1	Important girl.
0:32.1	Yeah, I'm sure that's not horrifying for her anyway.
0:35.1	Yeah, I is funny dinner conversation around ours.
0:39.1	But I think a lot of other physicians right now are following me.
0:44.1	I definitely do have some adolescent patients in the past couple of weeks.
0:48.1	I've come into the office and they're like, I saw your TikTok.
0:50.1	I follow you on TikTok.
0:52.1	So that's that's fun because that's who I'm trying to reach.
0:57.1	And I think that's what I think is that population with some of these messages.
1:01.1	By messages, Nicole means posts about family health.
1:05.1	And last month, one of them, a post of hers promoting the importance of vaccination, went viral.
1:12.1	And not entirely in a good way.
1:14.1	I was scared.
	...

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