The most comprehensive analysis of the UK’s anti-vax community reveals that just 0.32% of the population is active in the movement, contradicting its claim to represent “the 99%”.
The first analysis of its kind shows that the anti-vax movement is far smaller than expected, with about 220,000 unique active users identified within a network of 427 groups on the messaging app Telegram, its preferred platform.
Analysts, however, expressed concern about the “high crossover” between anti-vax ideologies and QAnon, the online conspiracy theory whose supporters stormed the US Capitol and whose violent tendencies prompted the FBI to label it a domestic terrorism threat in 2019.
The analysis, by Logically, a tech company that tackles misinformation by using factcheckers and open-source intelligence, also found that the conspiracy groups’ network structure reveals “sophisticated and repeated organisational tactics” throughout the UK.
Jordan Wildon, analyst at Logically, said: “Group membership was lower than originally expected. There are still a lot of people involved, but…
