(Mis)perceptions and Engagement on Twitter: COVID-19 Vaccine Rumors on Efficacy and Mass Immunization Effort

TL;DR

This study investigates how COVID-19 vaccine rumors on Twitter influence perceptions and engagement, revealing that misinformation can reinforce skepticism and that hesitant users are more likely to interact with such content.

Contribution

It demonstrates how simple content modifications and hashtags can induce misperceptions and explores the engagement patterns of vaccine-hesitant users on Twitter.

Findings

Misperceptions can be induced through content alterations and hashtags.

Twitter's misinformation tags can reinforce skepticism.

Vaccine-hesitant users are more likely to engage with rumors.

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a 606-participant study where we analyzed the perception and engagement effects of COVID-19 vaccine rumours on Twitter pertaining to (a) vaccine efficacy; and (b) mass immunization efforts in the United States. Misperceptions regarding vaccine efficacy were successfully induced through simple content alterations and the addition of popular anti COVID-19 hashtags to otherwise valid Twitter content. Twitter's misinformation contextual tags caused a "backfire effect" for the skeptic, vaccine-hesitant reinforcing their opposition stance. While the majority of the participants staunchly refrain from engaging with the COVID-19 rumours, the skeptic, vaccine-hesitant ones were open to comment, re-tweet, like and share the vaccine efficacy rumors. We discuss the implications of our results in the context of broadening the effort for dispelling rumors about COVID-19 on social media.