Anti-vax ‘fearmongers’ spreading misinformation are targeting Australia’s diverse communities, leaders, experts warn

Mohamed keeps seeing videos featuring misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines circulating online, and it is affecting his wife, their friends and school community.

Mohamed, who asked that his identity be protected, is a parent at one of the Islamic schools impacted by the outbreak that led to Victoria’s sixth lockdown.

“There’s some video clips going around on social media, which is kind of scaring parents not to promote their kids to receive the vaccine,” he told ABC News Breakfast.

Mohamed is not alone in suspecting groups spreading misinformation are targeting Melbourne’s culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Community leaders and experts are concerned, particularly because local government areas such as Hume, Brimbank, Darebin and Melton — home to large diverse communities — have the lowest vaccination rates in the state.

Dr Kaz Ross is an Asian studies specialist, and an independent researcher into far-right extremism, conspiracy theories and digital activism.

She said certain groups had realised marginalised communities, some that don’t have English as their first language, were having difficulty receiving health messages.

“The anti-vaxxers have worked out that they can move into these communities,” Dr Ross told ABC News Breakfast.

She explained they often appeared to be kind and compassionate people presenting balanced information when they were actually presenting anti-vaccine disinformation.

Dr Ross said anti-vax groups were purposefully going into communities at the centre of outbreaks.

“Melbourne’s northern suburbs, they hang around those places, they stick up fake QR codes, so that if people think that they’re QR coding into the supermarket [but] they’re actually clicking through to an anti-vax site,” she said.

Victoria police declined to comment.

Dr Ross believed those spreading misinformation had tailored their messaging for diverse communities who felt marginalised by government and media.

“All of those things are barriers for the government to reach out to those communities,” she said.

She said the past 18 months had shown community-building and outreach was not as successful during a pandemic, especially with Melbourne’s long periods in lockdown.

The Victorian Department of Health has supplied translated information to culturally and linguistically diverse communities as well as fact sheets to directly address misinformation.

During the most recent outbreak, there have been forums and consultations with school communities including staff, students and families to provide tailored and direct support.

“Our partnerships with culturally and linguistically diverse community leaders across the state have been central to combating misinformation and drive vaccinations among their respective communities,” a Department of Health spokesperson said.

“We’re making sure people have the factual information they need to advocate for vaccinations.”

But community advocate and director of Youth Activating Youth, Ahmed Hassan, said diverse communities were being influenced by anti-vax messaging despite the efforts of authorities.

He described vulnerable families grappling with viral misinformation, labelling the behaviour of those spreading the messages as “sickening”.

“There’s been videos circulating that have gone viral to parents — that this [vaccination] is part of a thing to target Muslim or multicultural communities, at the end of the day.”

Mr Hassan said the confusion has led to some people to refuse testing, and falsely claim the vaccine wasn’t effective and COVID-19 wasn’t real.

“[Anti-vax groups] are causing more distrust, more angst and fear. And confusion in the community, which is not needed in a time when we need a unified approach,” he said.

Mohamed received the Department of Health’s fact sheets after community consultations between his school and the department. They didn’t end the confusion.

Mr Hassan said a video circulated among students and parents at the beginning of the current lockdown, targeting the pilot pop-up vaccination clinic at Al-Taqwa College. It has had more than 30,000 views on Instagram, and was shared across WhatsApp groups.

On Telegram channels seen by the ABC, it is clear the poster of the video has visited Melbourne suburbs with diverse communities such as Flemington and Lalor.

His followers suggested he visit Fawkner and Truganina next, also suburbs with large, diverse communities.

The impact of viral misinformation

The COVID vaccine was offered to all primary close contacts from Mohamed’s children’s school for those over the age of 16.

His sons are under 16, and weren’t eligible to receive a vaccine. Then two weeks ago, the Pfizer vaccine was approved by ATAGI for 12 to 15 year olds.

“One of the politicians said, ‘this is a pilot’, I understand what he meant. But in the video clip it was kind of … ‘this is like a pilot experiment on your kid,’” Mohamed said.

The use of the word ‘pilot’, Mohamed said, was manipulated to mean ‘experiment’ — which prompted Mohamed’s wife to decide not to get the vaccine.

Mohamed described those spreading misinformation to minorities as “fear mongers”.

Mr Hassan agreed, saying such people were exploiting gaps in public health messaging.

“They’ve infiltrated it very well … they’re very consistent and persistent in their messaging,” he said.

Government must respond more quickly, on same platforms

Mohamed is afraid of what might happen if his sons don’t get vaccinated.

“It’s very nerve-wracking,” he said.

“What’s gonna happen next time he might go to school and cop it and get the disease and then bring it back home, or take it to his grandparents?”

He said there was not enough positive information countering “all the negative crap” surfacing on social media.

Mohamed called on government and health providers to use platforms such as WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook to distribute public health messages for diverse communities.

Mr Hassan said governments need to respond quickly to misinformation with innovative approaches.

“We need to continue having more people on the ground and messaging that’s much more consistent and targeted to different communities so that they are fully aware of what’s happening,” he said.

Loading form…

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from ABC News can be found here ***