Asklemmy

43943 readers

898 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When it comes to spreading disinformation about climate change or the risks of smoking, I can clearly see how it protects economic interests (e.g. the value of the assets of the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry). I therefore understand that these lies are (have been) regularly pushed by people who do not necessarily believe in them.

But what are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? Who gains from this? Is it just an effective topic to rile up a political base? Because it hits people right in the feels? Is it just a way to bring people together on one topic, in order to use that political base for other purposes?

Or is anti-vax disinformation really only pushed by people who believe it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ritswd 1 points 1 year ago

This reminds me of a study that was done at some point where in order to generate empathy and sway a person’s political opinion, they sent to their home a person who was impacted by the matter at hand, just to talk with them. So basically, sending to an anti-abortion voter a woman who had gone through an abortion; sending to an anti-trans voter a transgender person; etc.

The finding was that it worked in some cases, but that it worked best for topics that weren’t covered much by the news. Abortion rights were already a hot-button issue back then, and people’s minds weren’t changed much; but trans rights were not at all at the time (oh how the times have changed!), therefore minds were easier to change.