No Shots, No Problem: The Anti-Vaccination Movement on Social Media
Madeleine Ducharme, April 2021

2023 Anthropology Capstone Reader
Angèle Smith, Editor

DO NOT CITE IN ANY CONTEXT WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

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Vaccine-hesitancy and vaccine rejection are huge problems facing global public health today.
Diseases which were once considered to be virtually eliminated due to widespread vaccination
are returning with a vengeance, as cases of measles, mumps and chickenpox pop up and spread
throughout Europe and North America. As herd immunity diminishes, deadly infectious diseases
spread more easily among vulnerable human hosts. This is all due to the growing trend of
purposefully forgoing routine vaccinations. Anti-vaccine communities have been steadily
growing online for years, and now wield a potent influence on social media. Widespread access
to social media increases the ease with which misinformation about vaccines can spread and
reach new audiences across the globe. In this paper, I will be seeking to answer the question:
what is the anti-vaccine movement and how does this movement interact with social media? I
will also examine what role identity plays in attracting new believers to the anti-vaccine
community, if any.
The current global situation with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the importance
of vaccines: life can only start to “go back to normal” once enough people are vaccinated and
herd immunity is achieved against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, misinformation about the
recently developed vaccines and mistrust of government and public health officials is rampant.
Even those who do not consider themselves as “anti-vax” are cautious about the COVID-19
vaccine, likely because of information they came across online. In order to increase rates of
vaccination, doctors and researchers should aim to understand vaccine-hesitancy so they can
develop methods to effectively counter misinformation. This is where anthropologists may be
able to help, by examining and understanding the motivations leading people to the anti-vaccine
community. This may be very important in the future, as the COVID-19 vaccines become
available to the general public, and of course, it may help to increase rates of routine
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vaccinations as well, to reduce future outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. In addition, the
work of anthropologists may shed light on how anti-vaccine activists appeal to social media
users’ identities to attract them to the movement. Anti-vaccine activists have tended to target
women and parents, appealing to their identities specifically to draw them to the anti-vaccine
cause. Anthropologists may be able to use this information to instead direct these groups toward
credible scientific sources concerning vaccines.
BACKGROUND CONTEXT
Before delving more deeply into the issue, we should examine the question of what, exactly,
is the anti-vaccination movement? Also referred to as anti-vaxxers, the anti-vaccination
movement is composed of a loosely connected group of people, who believe, essentially, that
vaccines are more harmful than beneficial. There are varying reasons for the belief that vaccines
are harmful, including religious, political, scientific, health, or philosophical reasons (Calderon
Rodriguez et al. 2019:130). Another common theme within the anti-vaccination movement is the
right of parents to focus on the individual health of their child or children, without considering
the potential health consequences to the wider community, should they choose to forgo routine
vaccinations. Many anti-vax parents also believe they have a right to parent their children in the
way that they see fit, without interference from the state (Calderon Rodriguez et al. 2019:130). In
recent years, anti-vaccine beliefs have become increasingly entwined with various antigovernment and anti-science conspiracy theories, mainly spread over social media. However, not
all members of the anti-vaccine movement believe in other conspiracy theories. This is only a
very brief overview of a large and ever-growing community.

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Vaccines have long been considered one of the most important innovations in the field of
public healthcare. They originally emerged as a response to smallpox, a deadly infectious disease
which devastated the populations it afflicted, often leaving those which it did not kill with
permanent scarring or blindness (Lynam 2019:100). Epidemics of infectious disease such as
smallpox have also historically been associated with high levels of mortality, devastating the
populations they came into contact with (Sawchuk et al. 2013:459). Before vaccination was
developed, populations fearing smallpox outbreaks depended on variolation for protection, which
was noted to reduce the severity and lingering effects of the disease. This was a process not
unlike a sort of proto vaccination, where patients were inoculated with pustule fluid taken from
smallpox lesions (Lynam 2019:101). It is a great relief to think of the advances in vaccine
production and safety which have occurred since that time. While variolation did offer some
hope of protection against smallpox, it was not entirely effective, and unfortunately it also caused
many of its recipients to contract syphilis, a dangerous, often sexually transmitted bacterial
infection. Interestingly, there was also a vocal anti-variolation movement in the United States
during the 1700s, similar to the anti-vaccination movement today. During the height of the
Boston smallpox epidemic in 1721, Massachusetts Reverend John Williams described
variolation as “the work of the devil” (Lynam 2019:101). This mirrors an opinion shared by
some religious anti-vaccine extremists today, primarily evangelical Christians, who believe that
vaccination is “the mark of the beast”, which refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation
suggesting that Satan will test Christians by asking them to put a mark on their bodies.
Variolation subsequently led to vaccination when Edward Jenner, the so-called “father of
immunology”, noticed that milkmaids who had been exposed to the similar but milder cowpox
were seemingly immune to smallpox. This phenomenon had been observed before, but Jenner
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The Anti-Vaccination Movement on Social Media
was the first to try inoculating subjects with the material from non-lethal cowpox pustules to
provoke an immune reaction and protect against smallpox. In order to differentiate his newly
developed inoculation process from variolation, Jenner named it vaccination (Lynam 2019:102).
His new discovery turned out to be a major success. By the end of the eighteenth century, King
Charles of Spain had learned of Jenner’s research, and mandated that every citizen in Spain be
vaccinated. This desire for vaccination was so strong in Europe, and particularly in Spain,
because of several smallpox epidemics which had devastated the continent and caused the deaths
of four European monarchs in the past century alone (Lynam 2019:102). Since Edward Jenner’s
day, vaccine production has become safer, more efficient, and much more highly regulated.
Vaccines have been created to treat a variety of infectious diseases which once ran rampant,
including measles, rubella, mumps, chickenpox, smallpox, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and polio.
More recently, a vaccine has been created for Ebola, a contagious hemorrhagic fever disease
with a high level of mortality, and even more recently, for COVID-19.
Most of the anti-vaccination sentiment originating in Jenner’s time has similar roots to antivaccination sentiment today. Some of the main reasons why anti-vaccination activists began
protesting against vaccines included finances, skepticism, and religious, political or legal
arguments (Lynam 2019:103). Most of these reasons are still used by the anti-vaccine movement
today, and anti-vaxxers argue that the decline in rates of vaccine-preventable diseases is due to
improvements in sanitation, better nutrition, and increasing sociopolitical equality, rather than
vaccines (Conis 2013:424). Many of the current arguments against vaccination stem from a
discredited 1998 paper written by an English physician, Andrew Wakefield (Lynam 2019:104).
Wakefield’s now infamous paper suggested that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was
linked to the development of autism in children. The journal in which the paper was published

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subsequently retracted the article in question, and Wakefield lost his medical license. However,
the damage had been done. Wakefield is now an anti-vaccine activist, and many anti-vaxxers still
cite Wakefield’s paper as a reason not to vaccinate, despite the paper being thoroughly
discredited and then retracted. The anti-vaccination movement has only grown since the
publication of Wakefield’s paper.
Ironically, the success of vaccines has also contributed somewhat to the rise of antivaccination sentiment. Vaccines have successfully lowered morbidity and mortality for a variety
of once-abundant infectious diseases, so much so that parents are growing complacent (Lynam
2019:104). After all, why would you need to vaccinate your child against polio when polio has
been virtually eliminated in many countries? As today’s parents were born after widespread
vaccination was implemented, they have not had the experience of living through a polio
outbreak, a measles epidemic, or a flare-up of mumps. They have not lost friends or family
members to vaccine-preventable diseases or observed the potential debilitating lifelong effects of
surviving an illness such as polio. As these parents become more complacent, they also run the
risk of becoming more distrustful toward vaccines (Lynam 2019:104). As erroneous information
about vaccines becomes widely available across social media, even those who are provaccination may become confused or unsure about their choices (Lynam 2019:104). This is a
noticeable phenomenon today, with the roll-out of various COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the
publicly contentious AstraZeneca vaccine, which was mistakenly thought to be linked to the
formation of blood clots (Mahase 2021:1). Although vaccine-hesitancy and vaccine refusal are
rapidly becoming global problems, this paper will focus mainly on research and data taken from
North America, South America, and Europe.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Key Figures in the Anti-Vaccination Movement
Likely the most important figure in the contemporary anti-vaccination movement is the
previously mentioned Andrew Wakefield, the discredited British physician who published an
article linking the MMR vaccine and autism in the Lancet, an esteemed medical journal (Hotez
2020:505). Despite losing his medical license and having his article retracted due to his flawed
and unethical research methods and an undeclared conflict of interest, Wakefield remains
extremely popular among anti-vaxxers (Hussain, et al. 2018:2). His theory about the MMR
vaccine being linked to autism is still frequently cited by anti-vaccine activists, despite being
discredited, and he is often painted as a martyr and a whistle-blower who bravely dared to share
the truth and defy the profit-driven medical establishment. Another key figure in the antivaccination movement in the United States is Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the nephew of former U.S.
president John F. Kennedy. Kennedy runs an organization named Children’s Health Defense,
and much of his anti-vaccine rhetoric is spread over the social media platform Twitter (Hotez
2020:505). Along with the for-profit organization Stop Mandatory Vaccination, Kennedy’s
Children’s Health Defense is considered one of the most visible anti-vaccine groups in the
United States today (Hotez 2020:505). Other celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey,
and Alicia Silverstone are vocal anti-vaxxers and have helped spread false information about
vaccines on social media, using their platform and visibility to reach wider audiences.
Vaccine Opposition as a Civil Right
The anti-vaccination movement is increasingly using “civil liberties” language to frame
vaccination as an individual choice, rather than as an important factor for the maintenance of

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herd immunity and public health. This idea of vaccination as an individual choice is also tied to
neoliberalism1 and is a very popular argument in the United States, due to that country’s strong
focus on individual freedoms. This tactic has been shown to produce hesitance and delayed
vaccinations even among those who consider themselves pro-vaccine (Broniatowski et al.
2020:317). It has also been suggested that this “civil liberties” framework serves to deflect
attention away from the anti-vaccination movement’s internal contradictions regarding vaccine
safety and conspiracy theories. As the anti-vaccination community is a nebulous group held
together only by the belief that vaccines are more harmful than beneficial, there are vastly
differing opinions within the group on scientific or medical facts. For instance, some antivaxxers believe that vaccines cause the disease they were created to protect against or contain
toxic substances, while others believe that vaccines are unnecessary as diseases such as mumps
and polio are no longer a threat (Broniatowski et al. 2020:317). Framing vaccine opposition as a
civil liberties issue draws attention away from these internal disagreements.
Distrust in Government and Medical Officials
Many anti-vaxxers display a profound distrust of the government, medical personnel,
scientists, and “Big Pharma”, or the pharmaceutical industry responsible for creating and testing
vaccines. The previously mentioned Andrew Wakefield has alluded to the idea that there is
collusion between government officials, physicians, and the pharmaceutical industry to conceal
the harm vaccines do (Rothstein 2015:12). The idea that physicians promote and administer
vaccines not for the good of public health, but to line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies is

1

Neoliberalism is a contemporary dominant political-economic ideology that supports freemarket capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending.

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popular within the anti-vaccination community. Furthermore, government officials and medical
personnel may also be perceived as “elitist” and disconnected from caring about the good of the
people. Some anti-vaxxers also see physicians as “glorified drug pushers” who are uninformed
and reluctant to challenge the status quo (Bradshaw et al. 2020:2061). One recent survey
disseminated in the United States found that 56% of American respondents agreed with or felt
neutral toward the statement “doctors and government vaccinate children even though they know
vaccines cause autism and other disorders” (Featherstone, Bell, and Ruiz 2019:2993). This
distrust in public health officials and government agencies is likely why many anti-vaxxers are
so willing to share and believe erroneous information gleaned from social media, rather than
from more official sources such as government health websites.
METHODS
Primary Sources2
My primary source data was drawn from Facebook pages and Twitter posts, dated from
January 1, 2020 to March 2021. In order to filter the data, the keywords vaccine and vaccines
were used in the search function on Facebook, and the hashtags #vaccine and #vaccines were
used on Twitter. The posts on Twitter were filtered under the “Top posts” section but were
discounted if they were posted before January 1, 2020. Any Twitter posts with positive or neutral
connotations were ignored, as they were not relevant to the questions of what comprises the antivaccine community and how the anti-vaccine community interacts with social media. Comments

2

Primary sources refer to first-hand or contemporary accounts of an event or topic. Examples
include artifacts, original documents, diaries, manuscripts, autobiographies, interviews,
recordings, or social media. They are original sources of information created at the time being
study.

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on negative posts were also examined. On Facebook, the comment sections on positive or neutral
posts or pages were also examined, as many anti-vaccination groups are private and antivaccination opinions were visible on public posts. Various keywords or hashtags helped to
establish negative connotations within a page or post, including the key words “adverse
reactions”, “dumb”, and “experimental”, and the hashtags #DoctorsWhoTellTheTruth,
#RevolutionForChoice, and #Dangerous.
Secondary Sources3
This paper focuses much attention on information pulled from secondary sources. Secondary
source data was gathered from the literature. This data was mainly gathered from academic
articles published within the last five years, maximum within the last ten years. Articles about
the anti-vaccination movement, their origins, and their connections to social media were selected
as secondary sources. Qualitative content analysis4 was used not only to determine how the antivaccine movement interacts with and makes use of social media, but also how identity factors
into the mix. This paper focuses on studies conducted mainly in North America, South America,
and Europe. The United States is the most prominently featured country within the articles
chosen for this paper.

3

In contrast to primary sources, secondary sources of information are created later by someone
who did not experience or participate first-hand in the topic or event. Secondary sources often
draw on primary sources but also involve generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of
that original information. Many scholarly or academic publications are considered secondary
sources.
4

Qualitative content analysis is a systematic research method used to analyze qualitative data (as
opposed to quantitative research) by identifying patterns in written, oral or visual
communication, focused on interpreting and understanding the information.

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Case Studies and Findings
The anti-vaccination movement places a focus on individualism, convincing parents that their
right to protect their child from the perceived harm of vaccination trumps their duty to support
collective public health (Bradshaw et al. 2020:2058). Therefore, the choice to vaccinate is
wrested from institutions, whether governmental or medical, and put back into the hands of the
individual family. Anti-vaccine theories and false information about vaccines are easily spread
over social media, reaching new audiences due to the global prominence of platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter. On Twitter, it is estimated that a staggering 50% of Tweets relating to
vaccination contain anti-vaccine beliefs (Broniatowski 2018:1378). There are also serious
consequences relating to exposure to anti-vaccine material on social media. Exposure to antivaccine beliefs has been shown to lead to increased vaccine-hesitancy and delay. Parents who
have doubts about vaccination are more likely to search for vaccine-related information online,
and the heated debate surrounding vaccination may convince them that there is no scientific
consensus on the issue (Broniatowski 2018:1378). In the case of vaccine misinformation spread
on Twitter, bots and trolls may also help amplify and spread this misinformation. Bots refer to
Twitter accounts which automatically promote content, and trolls refer to individuals who seek to
purposefully cause discord on social media (Broniatowski 2018:1378).
Social media platforms serve as more than just a way for anti-vaxxers to spread their beliefs
and misinformation. There is also evidence that those people with anti-vaccines beliefs use social
media platforms to actively seek out others with similar viewpoints on vaccines and healthcare
(Buchanan and Beckett 2014:228). This suggests that anti-vaxxers use social media to create and
maintain a sense of community with like-minded others. This anti-vaccine community generates
posts on social media which link various health concerns, such as autism, cancer, and even AIDS

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to vaccines (Buchanan and Beckett 2014:232). These alarming, alleged linkages serve to frighten
parents or anyone else who is on the fence about vaccines. If a parent becomes convinced that
having their child vaccinated may lead to the development of cancer or AIDS, they are less likely
to follow the recommended vaccine schedule for their child. Anti-vaccine misinformation on
Facebook or testimonies from parents of children who experienced adverse reactions to vaccines
serve to provoke emotional responses in other Facebook users, leading to anger, fear, and
mistrust of vaccines (Buchanan and Beckett 2014:232).
Despite the alarming and rapid growth of the anti-vaccination movement, anti-vaccine Tweets
on Twitter have declined in number from 2014 to 2019 (Gunaratne, Coomes, and Haghbayan
2019:4867). Pro-vaccination Tweets far outnumbered anti-vaccination Tweets over a nine-year
period from 2010 to 2019, with seasonal spikes in pro-vaccine activity during influenza
vaccination campaigns (Gunaratne, Coomes, and Haghbayan 2019:4868). However, a large
surge of anti-vaccine activity occurred on Twitter between 2015 and 2016. This increase in
activity may have been due to the 2014-2015 measles outbreak, the publication of an antivaccine book linked to the anti-vaccine Twitter hashtag #cdcwhistleblower, and the release of
Andrew Wakefield’s film Vaxxed, also linked to a Twitter hashtag, #vaxxed (Gunaratne,
Coomes, and Haghbayan 2019:4868). Despite the lower number of anti-vaccine Tweets
compared to pro-vaccine Tweets, the anti-vaccination movement has doubled in size from the
period of 2016 to 2019 (Gunaratne, Coomes, and Haghbayan 2019:4869). In addition, this data
was gathered prior to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, which may potentially have increased the
number of anti-vaccine Tweets, due to the widespread scepticism over the COVID-19 vaccine.
One study carried out on Facebook focused on the comments posted to one 90 second proHPV vaccine video released by the Facebook page of a paediatric medical clinic. The aim of this
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study was to gather demographic information on users who posted anti-vaccine comments on the
clinic’s video. A total of 197 commenters were selected for the study. 86% of these 197
commenters were identified as female (Hoffman et al. 2019:2219). While political affiliation
could only be established for 28% of the commenters, the majority identified as supporters of the
former American president Donald Trump, followed by those who identified as supporters of the
United States Senator Bernie Sanders (Hoffman et al. 2019:2219). Notably, Trump and Sanders
represent opposing ends of the political spectrum in the United States. 136 individuals mentioned
their location, and the majority of these individuals were located in California, Texas, Australia,
and Canada. The most common anti-vaccine themes mentioned were “educational material”,
“media, censorship, and cover up”, and “vaccines cause idiopathic illness” (Hoffman et al.
2019:2219).
Qualitative analysis showed that many of the Facebook users included in the study shared the
same anti-vaccination stories, articles and photos taken from Facebook pages marketing
themselves as “pro-information”, “pro-science”, and “pro-vaccine choice” (Hoffman et al.
2019:2219). Despite this marketing, many of the Facebook users included within the study
displayed mistrust in medical and government officials. This study demonstrated that social
media may be used to bring vastly different people together in the online anti-vaccination
movement, as the commenters spanned the political spectrum and were from differing areas
across the globe (Hoffman et al. 2019:2219). Despite their political and geographical differences,
these commenters had found a sense of community and belonging through using Facebook to
connect with others who shared their beliefs.
It is also worrisome that an increasing number of young people have trouble distinguishing
between fact and fiction, perhaps due to the sheer amount of news, stories, and statistics they are

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inundated with online. A recent study in Brazil found that only 10% of students could
differentiate between true and false news (Silva 2021:213). This is concerning, as it leaves
students vulnerable to anti-vaccine misinformation spread over social media. In addition, the
average amount of time spent online is increasing. In South America, the average daily time
spent online is 3 hours and 29 minutes (Silva 2021:213). As age decreases, the amount of time
spent online increases, potentially leaving an entire younger generation more susceptible to
erroneous vaccine-related information circulating on social media. Furthermore, it is concerning
that during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown periods, many people were stuck at home and
have been spending much more time online than usual. This factor combined with rising anxiety
and skepticism surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines may cause the anti-vaccination movement
to grow.
Primary Source Findings from Facebook
While most popular anti-vaccine pages on Facebook are private, many of them boast
thousands of followers. In addition, there is significant anti-vaccine activity on public posts
created by health organizations. I examined the comments on three different posts by the WHO,
CDC, and UNICEF in order to see if there were any common trends among anti-vaccine
comments. One video, posted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on February 27, 2021,
focused on testing vaccine safety, specifically the safety of the various COVID-19 vaccines that
are available. There was an observable theme among the anti-vaccine comments posted to this
video. Many commenters expressed doubts that the vaccines were safe due to the speed with
which they were created, tested, and marketed. Others were concerned that if they were to suffer
side effects from the vaccine, the pharmaceutical company which created the vaccine would not
be held accountable (Facebook 2021). This idea plays into the common theme among anti13

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vaxxers that pharmaceutical companies are aware that vaccines are harmful, but market them
anyway to create a profit.
On a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) post from March 1, 2021, there was
also a clear theme among the anti-vaccine comments. The CDC post was an infographic relating
to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule, and many of the anti-vaccine comments
implied that vaccines are harmful, and that this has been scientifically proven (Facebook 2021).
Some comments on the CDC post also insinuated that the pro-vaccine or “forced vax” are part of
a cult of “scientism” (Facebook 2021). I was initially unsure of what this term meant. The
definition of scientism is “an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science
applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)”
(Stenmark 1997:15). These comments seem to imply that those who are pro-vaccine blindly put
their trust in medical and governmental officials, despite the “fact” that doctors, governments,
pharmaceutical companies, and vaccines are not to be trusted.
The third Facebook post I examined was created by UNICEF on February 27, 2021. The post
featured a video about measles and rubella vaccinations for children in Bangladesh. Several
comments on this video differed from the ones posted on the CDC and WHO posts. The
comments of this video tended to refer to the “evil” of vaccines, referencing religion and morals
rather than anti-science viewpoints (Facebook 2021). Interestingly, although this post was
primarily focused on measles and rubella vaccines, many comments addressed the coronavirus
pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. However, the focus on religion and the association between
vaccines and Satan, or religious evil, is a recognizable theme among anti-vaxxers, although it is
less prevalent than themes of vaccine safety or government mistrust.

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Primary Source Findings from Twitter
Interestingly, when searching the hashtag #vaccines on Twitter, there is a notice at the top of
the results page directing the user to the Public Health Agency of Canada. This suggests that
Twitter does take the problem of rampant false anti-vaccine claims made on the platform
seriously. There are numerous recent and popular anti-vaccine Tweets on Twitter from Robert F.
Kennedy Jr’s account. These Tweets themselves tend to focus on the safety of vaccines and the
trustworthiness, or lack of, of pharmaceutical companies. However, among the replies to
Kennedy Jr.’s Tweets, there is noticeable conspiracy thinking in association to vaccines. In
response to a Tweet posted on February 23, 2021, one commenter speculated that the COVID-19
vaccine is either a placebo or will cause a “mass extinction event” while being knowingly
administered to the American population by the government (Twitter 2021). Another commenter
compared physicians who recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to pregnant women to the
infamous German concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele, and in another comment trusting
physicians over one’s own observations was compared to “unscientific slavery” (Twitter 2021).
In general, the anti-vaccine rhetoric under Kennedy Jr.’s Tweet is more politically-charged and
more offensive than that on Facebook. Extreme anger, antisemitism, and conspiracy thinking are
all easily found in the comments posted to a single Tweet from Kennedy Jr.
Another extremely popular anti-vaccine figure on Twitter is Del Bigtree, a film and television
producer who describes himself as a “medical producer” despite having no medical training.
Many of the Tweets on Bigtree’s Twitter account give the impression that he is an expert
exposing the truth about vaccines, and he uses false scientific information to back his claims
(Twitter 2021). This portrayal leads to the impression that Bigtree can be trusted and listened to
on the topic of vaccines. At the same time, Bigtree uses phrases such as “be brave” in his
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Tweets, encouraging Twitter users to watch his videos and uncover the “truth” about vaccines,
sucking them deeper into anti-vaccine conspiracies. Throughout Bigtree’s Tweets, there is a
common theme of using language that gives the impression that he is a trustworthy, truthful
authority on vaccines, while simultaneously insinuating that anyone who does not believe his
claims is unintelligent. Interestingly, Bigtree also Tweets about other conspiracy theories and is
politically conservative. Suggestions have been made in the literature that there is a tentative link
between conservative or Republican politics and conspiracy thinking (van der Linden et al.
2021:25; Nera et al. 2021:742), but I want to note that I certainly do not believe that all
conservatives are conspiracy theorists, nor are they all anti-vaxxers.
There is also significant anti-vaccine activity perpetuated by bots and trolls on Twitter.
Several Tweets declared that vaccines lead to genocide and that the process of vaccination was
tyrannical. These troll accounts also tended to make politically charged, incendiary posts and are
heavily involved in other popular conspiracy theories, such as the QAnon conspiracy theory and
Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated fraud claims about the 2020 American election. While these
Tweets tended to be from smaller accounts with less of a platform than large, popular accounts
such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s or Del Bigtree’s, they would post frequently, most of them
posting multiple times a day or even multiple times an hour. The sheer number of daily antivaccine Tweets originating from bot or troll accounts could potentially influence other Twitter
users to dig more deeply into anti-vaccine claims and beliefs.

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ANAYLSIS
Association with Gender and Parenthood
While several prominent members of the anti-vaccination movement, such as Andrew
Wakefield and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are male, most studies place an increased focus on the
women involved in anti-vaccine communities. There has been a push within the anti-vaccine
movement for women to trust their “maternal instincts”, even when these instincts are in direct
opposition with expert medical advice (Bradshaw et al. 2020:2062). Furthermore, healthy
children are seen as a physical representation of good mothering, leading mothers to place
greater importance on their own children’s individual health rather than the health of all children
as a group (Reich 2014:682). This focus on women knowing what is best for their children
health-wise is a prominent theme on “mommy blogs”, online blogging platforms focused on
parenting. An examination of the top 25 most popular parenting blogs from the period between
2006 and 2015 showed that 52% of posts coming from these blogs were “strongly vaccinediscouraging” (Meleo-Erwin et al. 2017:1895). The prevailing themes regarding vaccines on
these blogs included the belief that parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have made
responsible and informed decisions, a suspicion of doctors and modern medicine, the belief that
vaccines contain toxic chemicals, and the belief that vaccines are harmful to children (MeleoErwin et al. 2017:1897).
Discussion
Unfortunately, Twitter and Facebook are breeding grounds for the spread of anti-vaccination
beliefs. While anti-vaxxers are generally portrayed as people who have bought into Andrew
Wakefield’s discredited study linking vaccines to autism, their worries and beliefs are actually

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much more diverse. The main concerns held by anti-vaxxers tend to involve vaccine safety,
mistrust of the government, or worries about personal liberty and freedom, but anti-vaccine posts
on Twitter and Facebook also tend to feed into conspiracy theories. Conservatives may accept
conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination beliefs more easily, as they rely more on social media
for medical information, and less so on authoritative medical websites (Featherstone, Bell, and
Ruiz 2019:2996). Social media allows the anti-vaccine movement to spread their false beliefs
quickly and efficiently, and to respond aggressively when their false beliefs are countered
(Featherstone, Bell, and Ruiz 2019:2996).
The anti-vaccination community may also play on individuals’ senses of identity as parents or
as women in order to reel them in to the movement. Throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s,
ensuring that children were vaccinated was seen as a mother’s duty. Mothers who failed to have
their children vaccinated, whether due to poverty or other factors, were chastised by doctors and
other health officials (Conis 2013:411). However, the second-wave feminism movement which
began to emerge in the 1960s sought to put women’s health issues back into women’s hands,
rather than advising women to blindly trust the often-paternalistic, male-dominated medical
establishment (Conis 2013:418). While certainly not all second-wave feminists distrusted
physicians, there was a growing belief that male physicians did not take women’s health
concerns seriously, withheld knowledge or lied to them, and even performed unnecessary
medical procedures. These were fair concerns at the time and still hold merit in the current day,
but unfortunately, these fears led to some undesirable results. By the end of the 1970s, this
attitude of mistrust had spread toward vaccines (Conis 2013:419). While these feelings were
originally expressed through books and films, anti-vaccine posts targeted specifically toward

DUCHARME
women and mothers are now commonly found across social media, particularly on “mommy
blogs”.
Relevance
It is more important than ever for anthropologists to study and make an effort to understand
the motivations of the anti-vaccination movement. The anti-vaccine movement has only grown
over time, and their use of social media allows them to connect with other like-minded
individuals and disseminate their beliefs mostly unchecked. In general, more time is being spent
online, and the amount of time spent online may be increased further due to lockdowns caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic. As previously mentioned, vaccine-hesitancy or refusal is a
significant problem and has led to outbreaks of several vaccine-preventable diseases in recent
years. In addition, vaccines are needed to allow us to return to living life as before COVID. If
herd immunity cannot be achieved against COVID-19, the coronavirus will continue to ravage
elderly populations and disrupt everyday life. Coronavirus mutations are also increasingly posing
a growing risk to younger age groups. However, concerns and skepticism surrounding the
COVID-19 vaccines may hamper efforts to achieve this herd immunity. That is why it is so vital
for anthropologists to attempt to understand the anti-vaccine movement and suggest ways to
effectively counter the spread of misinformation.
Limitations and Future Research
While this paper offers a broad look at how the anti-vaccine movement interacts with
Facebook and Twitter, and how identity and anti-vaccine beliefs may be linked, there are several
limitations to be considered. First, this paper focuses on Twitter and Facebook, and does not take
into account anti-vaccine activity on other popular forms of social media, such as Instagram,

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The Anti-Vaccination Movement on Social Media
YouTube, or TikTok. Anti-vaccine videos posted to YouTube or TikTok may be especially
problematic given the algorithms used by these platforms, which suggest similar material to the
videos one has already watched. The posts and comments that I examined on Twitter and
Facebook were also new, having been posted after January 1, 2020. These posts could potentially
have been influenced by the political climate at the time they were posted, and they may also
have been affected by the current global situation created by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The posts I examined were also all written in English, which may obscure the role of the antivaccine movement in non-English speaking online communities. In addition, the paper is focused
mainly on countries in North America, South America, and Europe. However, the anti-vaccine
movement also affects the continents of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. In the future, research into
the anti-vaccine movement and their relation to other social media platforms, languages, and
continents or countries may be revealing and useful.
CONCLUSION
The anti-vaccination movement is a loosely connected group of people who oppose
mandatory vaccines, or otherwise believe that the harm of vaccines outweighs their benefits.
Unfortunately, a drop in levels of vaccinations has led to several outbreaks of vaccinepreventable diseases within the last decade, and vaccine-hesitancy is considered one of the most
pressing threats to global health in the 21st century. Social media platforms such as Twitter and
Facebook allow members of the anti-vaccination movement to interact with each other with ease
and share content which may encourage others to refuse vaccines as well. The anti-vaccination
movement may also play upon aspects of identity, such as political orientation, parenthood, or
gender, to attract new believers. It is important to address the anti-vaccine movement and their
beliefs to encourage those who are seeking information about vaccines to speak with trusted

DUCHARME
professionals rather than turning to Facebook or Twitter, where misinformation and conspiracy
theories abound. This is particularly important given the need to achieve herd immunity in the
face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and to reduce any future outbreaks of vaccinepreventable diseases. Future research is needed to create a deeper understanding of the evolving
way that the anti-vaccination movement engages with social media, and to develop ways of
addressing the growing problem of vaccine-hesitancy and rejection.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Before beginning my acknowledgements, I would like to recognize that I live, learn, and work
on the traditional unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh, for which I am deeply grateful. I
would like to thank my professors in the Anthropology department at the University of Northern
British Columbia, particularly Dr. Angèle Smith and Dr. Lianne Tripp, for their support,
guidance, and inspiration for this paper. I would also like to thank my parents, Dr. Pierre
Ducharme and Allison Haley, and my siblings, Catriona and Noé Ducharme, for sitting down
with me and discussing vaccines and their benefits and drawbacks, as well as the cultural factors
contributing to vaccine-hesitancy. Finally, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my peer
reviewer, Kamrin McCain, for her valuable advice and comments.

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The Anti-Vaccination Movement on Social Media
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