Public health experts battling dangerous misinformation about the safety of vaccines have a new foe: Twitter bots and Russian trolls.
Researchers found that bots and Russian trolls mentioned vaccines more often than the average Twitter account over a three-year period, but for different reasons. Russian trolls stoked the debate by tweeting pro- and anti-vaccine messages in an apparent attempt to sow division, while bots that spread malicious software appeared to use anti-vaccine messages that inflame strong responses from both sides to attract clicks.
