Baylor College of Medicine
The internet has become a powerful venue for the dissemination of misinformation fueled by antivaccine and antiscience movements. Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed vaccine hesitancy as one of 10 threats to global health along with issues such as climate change and weak primary health care highlighting the need for action and global support for curtailing vaccine-preventable diseases. The strength of the antivaccine movement began gaining traction in the early 2000s, concomitant with a cyber explosion of personal websites, blogs, and social media platforms. To this day, these same online platforms and networking sites continue to be the main drivers of misinformation.