Articles By
Ozan Kuru
Alternative science against the corrupt elites? The effects of pseudoscience and censorship accusations in health misinformation
Ozan Kuru and Siyu Zhang
Due to extensive regulations, pseudoscience and accusations of censorship are increasingly used as persuasive strategies in health misinformation. How effective are these? This experiment examines the effects of pseudoscientific misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by accounting for the rhetoric of the “persecuted hero narrative” (Baker, 2022), which involves accusations of censorship against media, platforms, and governments.