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Troubled by the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients appearing in hospitals, a French doctor took to Facebook and uploaded a video urging people to get vaccinated.
Soon there were dozens, then hundreds, then more than 1,000 of the anti-vaccine extremist group V-V. The group, which operates in France and Italy, has harassed doctors and public health officials, vandalized government offices and tried to disrupt vaccination clinics.
Alarmed by the abuse on the platform, Facebook suspended several accounts linked to the group last December. But V—V, which continues to use Facebook and other platforms and like all anti-vaccination groups around the world, has expanded its portfolio to include climate change denialism and anti-democratic messages.
“Let’s go and get them home, they don’t need to sleep anymore,” said one post from the group. “Fight with us!” Another reads.
The largely unchecked nature of attacks on the health benefits of vaccines shows the obvious limits of social media companies’ ability to thwart the most damaging misinformation, especially without sustained aggressive efforts.
Researchers at UK-based nonprofit Reset identified more than 15,000 abusive or misinformed Facebook posts from V — V — activity that peaked in spring 2022, months after the platform announced its action against the company. In a report on V—V activities, Reset researchers concluded that its continued presence on Facebook “raises questions about the efficacy and consistency of meta-self-reported interventions.”
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has said that its 2021 actions are not to remove all V-V content, but to take down accounts that engage in coordinated harassment. The Associated Press reported that an additional 100 accounts were deleted this week after the group notified Facebook of its activities on the platform.
Meta says it’s trying to strike a balance between removing content that clearly violates harassment or dangerous misinformation from groups like V—V, but doesn’t silence innocent users. That can be especially difficult when it comes to the controversial issue of vaccines.
A Meta spokesperson told the AP: “This is a very hostile environment and our efforts are ongoing. Since our initial takedown, we have taken several steps in our efforts to recover this network.”
VV is also active on Twitter, where Reset researchers found hundreds of accounts and thousands of posts from the group. Many of the accounts were created shortly after Facebook cracked down on the program last summer.
In response to the reboot report, Twitter said it had taken enforcement action against several accounts linked to V—V, but did not elaborate.
VV has proved particularly resilient to efforts to stop him. Named after the movie “V for Vendetta,” the lone, masked man seeking revenge against an authoritarian government uses fake accounts to evade detection and often coordinates its messages and activities on Facebook’s less aggressive platforms like Telegram. Mediation policies.
According to Jack Stubbs, a researcher at Graphica, a data analysis firm that tracks VV’s activities, this adaptability is one of the reasons why it has been difficult to stop the group.
“They understand how the Internet works,” Stubbs said.
Graphica estimates that the group’s membership will reach 20,000 by the end of 2021, a small fraction of the members involved in its online harassment efforts. In addition to Italy and France, the Graphica team found evidence that V-V is trying to create chapters in Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil and Germany.
Groups and movements like V—V and Querdenken are threatening law enforcement and radicalization researchers.There is evidence that far-right groups are using skepticism about Covid-19 and vaccines to expand their reach.
Increasingly, such groups are moving from online harassment to real-world action.
For example, in April, V-V used Telegram to announce that it planned to pay a 10,000-euro reward to those who spray the group’s symbol (two red Vs in a circle) on public buildings or vaccination clinics. The group then used Telegram to distribute photos of the vandalism.
A month before Facebook took action against V—V, Italian police raided the homes of 17 anti-vaccination activists who used Telegram to threaten government, medical and media organizations in support of COVID-19 restrictions.
Social media companies have struggled to respond to misinformation about vaccines since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier this week, Facebook and Instagram blocked Children’s Health, an influential anti-vaccine organization run by Robert Kennedy Jr.
One reason is the tricky balance between moderating harmful content and freedom of expression, said Joshua Tucker of New York University, who directs the New York Center on Social Media and Politics and is a senior adviser on technology, government and economics at Kroll. Consulting firm.
Striking the right balance is especially important as social media has emerged as a key source of news and information around the world. Leave too much bad content and users may be misinformed. Download too much and users start to trust the platform.
“It’s dangerous for society to move in a direction where no one can trust information,” Tucker said.
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