How Vaccine Opponents Use Misinformation To Sell Products : Shots - Health News - NPR

Anti-vaccine advocates are using the COVID-19 pandemic to promote books, supplementals and services.

Anti-vaccine advocates are using the COVID-19 pandemic to promote books, supplementals and services.

He is one of many anti-vaccine advocates with a business on the side.

As people have searched online for information on the virus and vaccines, Ji and others have upped their rhetoric, while continuing to promote their books, workshops and other products.

Regardless of motivation, she believes that money is a major part of a feedback loop that continues to drive vaccine misinformation on social media.

Ahmed adds that while the anti-vaccine community's self-made personalities resemble others who have proliferated in the age of social media influencers, the potential damage they can cause is real.

"Someone who's promoting lipstick isn't going to lead to us not being able to contain a pandemic that's already taken half-a-million lives," he says?

Other anti-vaccine advocates have toned down their rhetoric on large platforms like Facebook.

"When they get kicked off of their social media platforms I do think they take a major hit to their business models," she says

For his part, Ji says the biggest hit to his web traffic actually came before the pandemic, in 2019, when Google changed its search algorithms to hide anti-vaccine sites like his

And he says he doesn't worry much about the financial implications of getting kicked off social media sites either

His company's Facebook account continues to promote vaccine misinformation to half-a-million followers