Antivaccine, denialist, and conspiracy theorist content on Facebook. An analysis of the No to the New World Order page

Abstract

Introduction. Antivaccine, denialist, and conspiracy ideas are generally part of an ecosystem of beliefs reinforcing each other. With the advent of covid-19, these ideas figure among the main disinformation contents of counter-official discourses. The article aims to characterize the contents of the Facebook page ‘No to the New World Order’.

Method. The content analysis method was employed for the 625 publications on the page during the period studied (October 2020 to January 2022).

Analysis. Descriptive statistics were used for the analysis, the topic modeling technique, and the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm.

Results. Covid-19 was the main focus of the analysed posts (68%). Many posts criticised government measures, while others alleged censorship and media manipulation of unofficial covid-19 information. Additionally, the posts asserted that the pandemic is part of a New World Order promoted by elites. Conservative ideas were also found, alongside the criticism of health, economic, and financial organisations. The most liked posts included two videos: one about a strike by health workers in France and another criticising vaccines.

Conclusions. Based on the published content, it can be observed that 'No to the New World Order' serves as a platform for criticizing pandemic management across all fronts. However, this space does not accommodate divergent opinions, criteria, or perspectives, nor does it offer criticism or questioning of the accuracy of shared content. These conditions foster misinformation and polarization on the issue.