Research + Policy

A handful of companies run by a small elite dominate the Internet economy. They own the platforms and technology on which 4.5 billion people share information, form and maintain relationships and transact business. The communities on these online platforms, the behaviours and beliefs, the values emerging from those spaces increasingly touch every aspect of offline society too.

Our report on the pandemic profiteers; the dozen leading anti-vaxxers who have enriched themselves by spreading misinformation. The Anti-Vaxx industry boasts annual revenues of at least $36 million and is worth up to $1.1 billion to Big Tech with 62 million followers across their platforms. Through government PPP loans, affiliate marketing schemes and social media empires, these anti-vaxx businesses have been able to generate profits by spreading misinformation. ACT by signing our petition demanding big tech companies remove anti-vaxx profiteers from their platforms.

Appearing before Congress in March, tech CEOs promised to act on twelve anti-vaxxers who are responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media. One month on, our report shows that Big Tech has failed to act, allowing the spread of vaccine disinformation that has been viewed up to 29 million times.

The rollout of vaccines across the world has put an end to the coronavirus pandemic in sight. Yet misinformation about Covid and vaccine lies threaten to prolong the pandemic, costing lives.

Anti-vaxxers met in private in late October 2020 to discuss their plans to disrupt the Covid vaccine. They didn't realise CCDH was there too. The Anti-Vaxx Playbook is our new report exposing their tactics, messages and use of social media. Our report explains how health experts, the public, tech giants and legislators can counter these harmful plans.

Our latest report exposes how social media companies have helped sophisticated and rapidly growing anti-vaxx networks gain 58 million followers. Despite promises to keep users safe, we show how Big Tech itself makes up to $1 billion a year in advertising and other revenues from this industry, which threatens the effectiveness of a future Coronavirus vaccine.

Social media giants claim to be taking the Coronavirus 'infodemic' seriously. Our latest report, produced with Restless Development, tests these claims. Volunteers flagged misinformation that breached social media giants' standards using their own reporting systems. However, over 9 in 10 of the posts reported had no action taken against them.