Covid-19 vaccines: Here's how to spot misinformation on social media — and fight it

A resident has a smartphone photo taken as she receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty branded Covid-19 vaccine at a mass vaccination site at Athlone Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa, on Friday, Aug 20, 2021. In recent months, you likely have been bombarded with inaccurate or misleading information regarding the efficacy and safety of vaccines, created by bad actors on the Internet and later shared by friends, family, celebrities, influencers and politicians all over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms. — Bloomberg

Believe it or not, you may have more power in getting others vaccinated against Covid-19 than scientists.

In recent years, social media research and large-scale social network experiments have shown that family and friends could be more effective than public health officials in terms of directing useful information to those around us, largely because we tend to trust knowledgeable people who are close to us and can tailor our messaging to better connect with loved ones.