Russia is sowing seeds of doubt to interfere in the United States' vaccination campaign.
In a review of online vaccine-relevant information between July 2014 through September 2017 – predating the COVID-19 pandemic – the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) found that Russian bots and trolls spread false vaccine information in an effort to undermine legitimate vaccine information. AJPH said these efforts are part of the greater Russian campaign of sowing discord throughout the United States.
The Wall Street Journal reported that New Eastern Outlook, Oriental Review, News Front and Rebel Inside are the four publications singled out by the State Department's Global Engagement Center as pushers of vaccine disinformation supported by Russian intelligence.
“We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services,” a Global Engagement Center official told The Wall Street Journal regarding the websites behind Russia's disinformation effort. “They’re all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States. They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.”
The disinformation efforts are particularly focused on the Pfizer vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Russian misinformation materials often question how the vaccines were developed, in particular claiming that the approval process was rushed. The materials also put a large emphasis on vaccine side effects.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the direct readership of these sources is believed to be small, but the information in them can be rapidly spread through media.
The AJPH research paper also said that Twitter bots originating in Russia rapidly spread health misinformation. The paper concluded that Russian bots were more likely to tweet about vaccinations than the average Twitter user and that their vaccination-related tweets were more likely to contain political references.
Facebook removed 65 accounts and 243 Instagram accounts linked to a Russian disinformation network that pays influencers to push anti-COVID-19 vaccine content, Reuters reported.