Retracted Articles about COVID-19 Vaccines Enable Vaccine Misinformation on Twitter
Rod Abhari, Esteban Villa-Turek, Nicholas Vincent, Henry Dambanemuya,, Em\H{o}ke-\'Agnes Horv\'at

TL;DR
This study analyzes how retracted COVID-19 vaccine articles spread misinformation on Twitter, revealing that over a quarter of related tweets contain false claims, often ignoring or politicizing retractions.
Contribution
It provides a detailed analysis of the content and nature of misinformation related to retracted COVID-19 vaccine research on social media.
Findings
27.4% of tweets contained retraction-related misinformation
Misinformed tweets often ignored or politicized retractions
Highlights need for social media platforms to combat retraction misinformation
Abstract
Retracted scientific articles about COVID-19 vaccines have proliferated false claims about vaccination harms and discouraged vaccine acceptance. Our study analyzed the topical content of 4,876 English-language tweets about retracted COVID-19 vaccine research and found that 27.4% of tweets contained retraction-related misinformation. Misinformed tweets either ignored the retraction, or less commonly, politicized the retraction using conspiratorial rhetoric. To address this, Twitter and other social media platforms should expand their efforts to address retraction-related misinformation.
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Taxonomy
TopicsMisinformation and Its Impacts · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection
