Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube. Each of these digital platforms has a contribution to make to the denialist edema around vaccines. Telegram has a special place in this debate: the tool for exchanging messages that was almost blocked in Brazil is a strategic space to produce disinformation that will be shared by cell phones and other social networks.
It is therefore, an organizing pole for anti-vaccination movements. This is what a survey by Federal University of Minas Gerais points out, which monitored, for six months in 2021, the digital debate on immunizations in Brazil. The period, from June to November, coincided with the acceleration of the vaccination campaign against Covid-19 in the country.
Telegram entered the hot seat after the decision of the Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to obstruct the application in the country. The order did not need to be put into practice because, after failed attempts at dialogue, Telegram finally responded to the Brazilian justice system.
The study shows that the tool founded in 2013 by two Russian brothers serves as a regeneration zone for deleted pages in other apps.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon