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Aggressive behaviour of anti-vaxxers and their toxic replies in English and Japanese

Author

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  • Kunihiro Miyazaki

    (The University of Tokyo)

  • Takayuki Uchiba

    (Sugakubunka Co., Ltd.)

  • Kenji Tanaka

    (The University of Tokyo)

  • Kazutoshi Sasahara

    (Tokyo Institute of Technology)

Abstract

The anti-vaccine movement has gained traction in many countries since the COVID-19 pandemic began. However, their aggressive behaviour through replies on Twitter—a form of directed messaging that can be sent beyond follow-follower relationships—is less understood, and even less is known about the language use differences of this behaviour. We conducted a comparative study of anti-vaxxers’ aggressive behaviours by analysing a longitudinal dataset of COVID-19 tweets in English and Japanese. We found two common features across these languages. First, anti-vaxxers most actively transmit targeted messages or replies to users with different beliefs, especially to neutral accounts, with significantly toxic and negative language, and these replies are often directed to posts about vaccine operations. Second, influential users with many followers and verified accounts are more likely to receive the most toxic replies from the anti-vaxxers. However, pro-vaccine accounts with a few followers receive highly toxic replies in English, which is different from the Japanese case. These results provide insights into both language-dependent and independent countermeasures against anti-vaxxers’ aggressive behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Kunihiro Miyazaki & Takayuki Uchiba & Kenji Tanaka & Kazutoshi Sasahara, 2022. "Aggressive behaviour of anti-vaxxers and their toxic replies in English and Japanese," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:9:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-022-01245-x
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01245-x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cornelia Betsch & Corina Ulshöfer & Frank Renkewitz & Tilmann Betsch, 2011. "The Influence of Narrative v. Statistical Information on Perceiving Vaccination Risks," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 31(5), pages 742-753, September.
    2. Neil F. Johnson & Nicolas Velásquez & Nicholas Johnson Restrepo & Rhys Leahy & Nicholas Gabriel & Sara El Oud & Minzhang Zheng & Pedro Manrique & Stefan Wuchty & Yonatan Lupu, 2020. "The online competition between pro- and anti-vaccination views," Nature, Nature, vol. 582(7811), pages 230-233, June.
    3. Bjarke Mønsted & Sune Lehmann, 2022. "Characterizing polarization in online vaccine discourse—A large-scale study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-19, February.
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