Russian Twitter bots spread false vaccine information

Social media bots and Russian trolls spread false information about vaccines on Twitter during the 2016 presidential election period, according to new research. The research led by George Washington University (GW) said the twitter accounts entered into vaccine debates months before election season was underway.  The study “Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate” was published in the American Journal of Public Health. A team of researchers, also from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University, examined thousands of tweets sent between July 2014 and September 2017. Several accounts, now known to belong to Russian trolls who interfered in the US election, as well as marketing and malware bots, tweeted about vaccines, skewing online health communications.