KREMLIN BOTS SPREADING FAKES ABOUT VACCINATION IN TWITTER - UKRAINE'S HEALTH MINISTER

Recently, American researchers published a study that was another bright example of Russia's hybrid war and its implications for the world. In Twitter, Russian bots and trolls have been spreading the lie about vaccines for a number of years, and fueled anti-vaccination attitudes in society.

Thousands of tweets, published between 2014 and 2017, were analyzed. A large number of those who talked about vaccination, was written from fake Russian accounts (source).

These tweets were spreading groundless opinions about vaccination, like that they cause autism or kill people. In paralell, the fake accounts also twitted in support of vaccination, however these tweets were aimed to spark discussions about vaccines that could confuse millions of people and influence their decision to abandon vaccination.

Look at these terrible figures - only in 6 months of 2018 in Europe 41 thousand people got the measles, 37 died (source). One of the causes of spread of the disease is abandonment of vaccinations, caused by dirty misinformation campaigns. In Ukraine, Russian bots, trolls and pro-Russian politicians have been spreading lies about vaccination for years and are engaged in undermining the vaccination of population. As a result, we have no confidence in vaccines and outbreaks of illness.

This is an important lesson - always check the sources of information and never make conclusions from messages that are not confirmed by the facts!

Especially this applies to those, who works in media. From now on, when you see anti-vaccine misinformation flashes, know who is behind it. This example shows that Russia uses not only a phisical weapon to undermine the fundations of civilisation in the world. It also undermines the credibility of evidence-based medicine. Vaccination is an indisputable and non-alternative way of ensuring human security.

via the facebook of Ulana Suprun, Minister of Health Ukraine