Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Oct 20, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 20, 2021 - Dec 15, 2021
Date Accepted: Dec 9, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Feb 14, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The anti-Green Pass rhetoric in Italy is shaped by anti-vaccine views and focuses on limitations of personal freedom: A social listening analysis on Telegram chats
ABSTRACT
Background:
The recent introduction of COVID-19 certificates in several countries, including the introduction of a European Green Pass, has been met with protests and concerns by a fraction of the population. In Italy, the Green Pass has been used as a nudging measure to incentivize vaccinations, since unvaccinated people are not allowed to enter restaurants and bars, museums, or stadiums.
Objective:
This study aims to understand and describe the concerns of anti-green pass individuals in Italy, the main arguments of discussion, and their characterization.
Methods:
We collected data from Telegram chats and analyzed with a mixed-methods approach the arguments and the concerns that were raised by the users.
Results:
Most individuals opposing the green pass share anti-vaccine views, but that doubts and concerns about vaccines are not often among the arguments raised to oppose the green pass. Instead, the discussion revolves around legal aspects and the definition of personal freedom. Further, we explain the nature of the dichotomy and similarity between anti-vaccine and anti-green pass discourse, and we discuss the ethical ramifications of our research, focusing on the use of Telegram chats as a social listening tool for public health.
Conclusions:
A large fraction of anti-green pass individuals share anti-vaccine views. We suggest public health and political institutions to provide a legal explanation and a context for the use of the green pass, as well as to continue focusing on vaccine communication to inform hesitant individuals. Further work is needed to define a consensual ethical framework for social listening for public health.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.