Unregulated social media sources pose a particular problem in contributing to vaccine hesitancy.
Government and social media firms need to take urgent action, according to a new study from the universities of Oxford and Southampton which finds that people who look to social media for information – particularly YouTube – are less willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
University of Oxford Professor Melinda Mills, University of Southampton Professor Will Jennings and their research team, found that unregulated social media sources poses a particular problem in contributing to vaccine hesitancy. The article, published in the journal Vaccines, warns that social media users can fall prey to an ‘echo chamber’ effect – where tailored recommendations, based on an individual’s ‘watch history’, underline an individual’s concerns and rarely provide alternative or expert views.