Study discovered several accounts, now known to belong to the same Russian trolls who interfered in the US election, tweeting about vaccines 
 
 Bots and Russian trolls spread misinformation about vaccines on Twitter to sow division and distribute malicious content before and during the American presidential election, according to a new study. “You see this pattern,” said David A. Broniatowski , a computer engineer at George Washington University and lead author of the study, which was published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. The study discovered several accounts, now known to belong to the same Russian trolls who interfered in the US election, as well as marketing and malware bots, tweeting about vaccines. But instead of picking a side, researchers said, the trolls and bots they programmed hurled insults at both pro- and anti-vaccine advocates. “These trolls seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society,” Mark Dredze, a team member and professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins, which was also involved in the study, said. "By playing both sides, they erode public trust in vaccination, exposing us all to the risk of infectious diseases," he said. In Europe more than 41,000 people were infected with measles in the first six months of 2018 - nearly double the number of cases for the whole of last year - leading to 37 deaths. In the US, the number of children being exempted from immunisation for religious or philosophical reasons is also rising, research published in June found. While a majority of Americans believed vaccines were safe and effective, looking at Twitter gave a different impression and suggested that there was a lot of debate about the issue, the disinformation study, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health, said. Although it’s impossible to know exactly how many tweets were generated by bots and trolls, our findings suggest that a significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas.” 
 
 Russian trolls appeared to link vaccination to controversial issues in the US. The IRA tweets used polarising language and linked vaccination to controversial statements about race, class and government legitimacy, the researchers said. One tweet casting doubt on vaccines that was cited in the study read: "Did you know there was secret government database of #Vaccine-damaged child? #VaccinateUS,” read one Russian troll tweet. Another that argued for vaccinations said: "#VaccinateUS You can't fix stupidity. Let them die from measles, and I’m for #vaccination!” 
 
 “Whereas bots that spread malware and unsolicited content disseminated anti-vaccine messages, Russian trolls promoted discord,” researchers concluded. “Accounts masquerading as legitimate users create false equivalency, eroding public consensus on vaccination.” 
 
 Measles is on the rise in Europe – and populism could be to blame | Sarah Boseley Read more 
 
 Researchers examined a random sample of 1.7m tweets collected between July 2014 and September 2017 – the height of the American presidential campaign that led to Donald Trump’s victory. Meanwhile less sophisticated "content polluters" - bot accounts that distribute malware, unsolicited commercial content and disruptive materials - shared anti-vaccination messages much more frequently than average Twitter users, using them as "bait" to get people to click on links to malicious websites. Social media companies are struggling to find ways to combat disinformation on their platforms. In February, Twitter deleted 3,800 accounts linked to the Russian government-backed Internet Research Agency, the same group researchers at George Washington examined. Earlier this week Facebook and Twitter said they had suspended or removed accounts linked to Iran and Russia over "inauthentic" or "manipulating" behaviour.
– You might think twice about heading to Twitter or Facebook to read about vaccinations. "A significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas," says George Washington University's David Broniatowski, author of a new study calling out Russian trolls for seeking to polarize Americans on the issue during 2016 election meddling. Already known to have stirred up issues relating to guns and race, Russia-linked Twitter accounts sent more than 250 tweets offering a pro- or anti-vaccine stance between 2014 and 2017, the BBC reports, citing the study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. Those identified as trolls tweeted about vaccines 22 times more often than regular Twitter users, according to the study, which notes that #VaccinateUS was "uniquely identified with Russian troll accounts associated with the [Kremlin's] Internet Research Agency," per the Guardian and New York Times. "You can't fix stupidity. Let them die from measles, and I'm for #vaccination!" one such tweet read. "Don’t get #vaccines. Illuminati are behind it," read another. "By playing both sides, they erode public trust in vaccination, exposing us all to the risk of infectious diseases," says researcher Mark Dredze. But the tweets are really about sowing discord, says Broniatowski, noting that many IRA-linked tweets about vaccines also mentioned, race, class, and the US government. (Expect something similar as the midterms approach.)