Characterizing Vaccination Movements on YouTube in the United States and Brazil

In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, social networks such as Twitter and YouTube stand out as important sources of information. YouTube, as the largest and most engaging online media consumption platform, has a large influence in the spread of information and misinformation, which makes it important to study how it deals with the problems that arise from disinformation, as well as how its users interact with different types of content. Considering that United States (USA) and Brazil (BR) are two countries with the highest COVID-19 death tolls, we asked the following question: What are the nuances of vaccination campaigns in the two countries? With that in mind, we engage in a comparative analysis of pro and anti-vaccine movements on YouTube. We also investigate the role of YouTube in countering online vaccine misinformation in USA and BR. For this means, we monitored the removal of vaccine related content on the platform and also applied various techniques to analyze the differences in discourse and engagement in pro and anti-vaccine "comment sections". We found that American anti-vaccine content tend to lead to considerably more toxic and negative discussion than their pro-vaccine counterparts while also leading to 18% higher user-user engagement, while Brazilian anti-vaccine content was significantly less engaging. We also found that pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine discourses are considerably different as the former is associated with conspiracy theories (e.g. ccp), misinformation and alternative medicine (e.g. hydroxychloroquine), while the latter is associated with protective measures. Finally, it was observed that YouTube content removals are still insufficient, with only approximately 16% of the anti-vaccine content being removed by the end of the studied period, with the USA registering the highest percentage of removed anti-vaccine content(34%) and BR registering the lowest(9.8%).Comment: Accepted at ACM HT 2022, 15 pages, 7 figure

A Comparative Analysis of Anti-vax Discourse on Twitter Before and After COVID-19 Onset

This study aimed to identify and assess the prevalence of vaccine-hesitancy-related topics on Twitter in the periods before and after the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Using a search query, 272,780 tweets associated with anti-vaccine topics and posted between 1 January 2011, and 15 January 2021, were collected. The tweets were classified into a list of 11 topics and analyzed for trends during the periods before and after the onset of COVID-19. Since the beginning of COVID-19, the percentage of anti-vaccine tweets has increased for two topics, “government and politics” and “conspiracy theories,” and decreased for “developmental disabilities.” Compared to tweets regarding flu and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines, those concerning COVID-19 vaccines showed larger percentages for the topics of conspiracy theories and alternative treatments, and a lower percentage for developmental disabilities. The results support existing anti-vaccine literature and the assertion that anti-vaccine sentiments are an important public-health issue

Topic Discovery on Farsi, English, French, and Arabic Tweets Related to COVID-19 Using Text Mining Techniques

Background: Social networks are a good source for monitoring public health during the outbreak of COVID-19, these networks play an important role in identifying useful information. Objectives: This study aims to draw a comparison of the public's reaction in Twitter among the countries of West Asia (a.k.a Middle East) and North Africa in order to make an understanding of their response regarding the same global threat. Methods: 766,630 tweets in four languages (Arabic, English French, and Farsi) tweeted in March 2020, were investigated. Results: The results indicate that the only common theme among all languages is 'government responsibilities (political)' which indicates the importance of this subject for all nations. Conclusion: Although nations react similarly in some aspects, they respond differently in others and therefore, policy localization is a vital step in confronting problems such as COVID-19 pandemic. © 2021 The authors, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and IOS Press

Can personality traits be measured analyzing written language? a meta-analytic study on computational methods

In the last two decades, empirical evidence has shown that personality traits could be related to the characteristics of written language. This study describes a meta-analysis that synthesizes 23 independent estimates of the correlations between the Big Five major personality traits, and some computationally obtained indicators from written language. The results show significant combined estimates of the correlations, albeit small to moderate according to Cohen's conventions to interpret effect sizes, for the five traits (between r = 0.26 for agreeableness and neuroticism, and 0.30 for openness). These estimates are moderated by the type of information in the texts, the use of prediction mechanisms, and the source of publication of the primary studies. Generally, the same effective moderators operate for the five traits. It is concluded that written language analyzed through computational methods could be used to extract relevant information of personality. But further research is still needed to consider it as predictive or explanatory tool for individual difference

The fight to remain compliant: Public sentiment, pandemic and policing the second 2020 Victorian lockdown

Before 2020, the idea that an entire country would grind to a halt with businesses closed and freedom of movement curtailed at a moment’s notice would have seemed a fantasy, but the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered the way the public experiences control in a lockdown setting. While lockdowns have occurred around the world, one of the more strict example of this policy occurred in Melbourne, Australia, where a 112-day shutdown lasted from July to October 2020. Such an extensive lockdown begs the question of how compliance with such restrictions over a lengthy period of time is maintained. This article offers a sentiment analysis of online discourse on the Facebook pages of four Melbourne news sources (The Age, 7 News Melbourne, 9 News Melbourne and NewsTalk 3AW) at key points during the second lockdown, to assess attitudes toward compliance (or, importantly, non-compliant behaviours). It shows that, despite media coverage suggestion resistance, the general public largely remained supportive of restrictive lockdown measures throughout the crisis, indicating that it is possible to achieve compliance from the majority of the public in strictly enforced lockdowns, despite the intervention of small-but-enthusiastic sets of anti-lockdown activists