William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA.
School of Media and Communication Studies, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.
Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2021 Aug 3;17(8):2575-2577. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2021.1894897. Epub 2021 Mar 11.
Pakistan's polio eradication program faces immense challenges, including misinformation on social media that resulted in an increased number of new polio cases in 2019, when viral misleading videos were shared online. In recent years, misinformation has played a critical role in shifting the public's attitude on polio vaccination acceptance in Pakistan. Vaccine misinformation on social media marked a turning point in information consumption habits of Pakistanis and the content moderation policies of social media platforms, as well as the relationship between the government of Pakistan and tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. This commentary suggests that instead of relying on national-level information, Pakistan's provincial and local health departments should engage with local users on social media to correct vaccine misinformation about polio. Further, vaccine communication must acknowledge the existing information gaps, and take into account readers' and viewers' concerns. To mitigate the amount and spread of visual content related to vaccine misinformation, monitoring visual misinformation more closely, perhaps using the AI capabilities of Google's DeepMind, would be helpful.
巴基斯坦的脊髓灰质炎根除计划面临巨大挑战，包括社交媒体上的错误信息，这导致 2019 年新的脊髓灰质炎病例增加，当时网上分享了带有误导性的病毒视频。近年来，错误信息在改变巴基斯坦公众对脊髓灰质炎疫苗接种接受度的态度方面发挥了关键作用。社交媒体上的疫苗错误信息标志着巴基斯坦人的信息消费习惯以及社交媒体平台的内容审核政策，以及巴基斯坦政府与 Facebook、谷歌和 Twitter 等科技巨头之间关系的一个转折点。本评论建议，巴基斯坦省级和地方卫生部门不应依赖国家层面的信息，而应在社交媒体上与当地用户接触，以纠正有关脊髓灰质炎疫苗的错误信息。此外，疫苗传播必须认识到现有的信息差距，并考虑到读者和观众的关切。为了减少与疫苗错误信息相关的视觉内容的数量和传播，更密切地监测视觉错误信息，也许可以利用谷歌 DeepMind 的人工智能能力，这将是有帮助的。
