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arXiv · 2306.06683

To be a pro-vax or not, the COVID-19 vaccine conundrum on Twitter

Zainab Zaidi·Mengbin Ye·Shanika Karunasekera·Yoshihisa Kashima
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Abstract

The most surprising observation reported by the study in (arXiv:2208.13523), involving stance detection of COVID-19 vaccine related tweets during the first year of pandemic, is the presence of a significant number of users (~2 million) who posted tweets with both anti-vax and pro-vax stances. This is a sizable cohort even when the stance detection noise is considered. In this paper, we tried to get deeper understanding of this 'dual-stance' group. Out of this group, 60% of users have more pro-vax tweets than anti-vax tweets and 17% have the same number of tweets in both classes. The rest have more anti-vax tweets, and they were highly active in expressing concerns about mandate and safety of a fast-tracked vaccine, while also tweeted some updates about vaccine development. The leaning pro-vax group have opposite composition: more vaccine updates and some posts about concerns. It is important to note that vaccine concerns were not always genuine and had a large dose of misinformation. 43% of the balanced group have only tweeted one tweet of each type during our study period and are the less active participants in the vaccine discourse. Our temporal study also shows that the change-of-stance behaviour became really significant once the trial results of COVID-19 vaccine were announced to the public, and it appears as the change of stance towards pro-vax is a reaction to people changing their opinion towards anti-vax. Our study finished at Mar 23, 2021 when the conundrum was still going strong. The dilemma might be a reflection of the uncertain and stressful times, but it also highlights the importance of building public trust to combat prevalent misinformation.

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Zainab Zaidi, Mengbin Ye, Shanika Karunasekera, Yoshihisa Kashima. 2024-07-08. To be a pro-vax or not, the COVID-19 vaccine conundrum on Twitter. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.06683

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