Teenage sisters Iulia and Tesia Autagavaia and their cousin, Daizy Frost, are horrified at the online anti-vax messaging targeting the Pasifika community.
They say the scaremongering is next level and false information is rife.
“There are two pandemics going on, the way I see it – the virus and then misinformation,” Iulia said.
Tesia agrees, and says the problem is it’s putting people off from getting the Covid-19 vaccine, making the pandemic worse.
Frost says a lot of people are looking for information and quite often just take in the easiest to understand, even if it's incorrect.
Around 68 per cent of the country's Delta cases are Pasifika, yet they have the second-lowest vaccination rates after Māori.
Assemblies of God church member Uta’ileuo Mary Kalala Autagavaia says much of the misinformation being peddled online is being done by “some of our young people behind their keyboards trying to be influencers but with the wrong information”.
She says the misinformation they are spreading is not necessarily their own views, but were instead picked it up on social media themselves.
Lisa Taouma, who runs Coconet TV, the biggest Pacific online platform targeting youth, says a lot of the anti-vax messaging she battles originates from the US.
“We have been having a very full on time trying to manage misinformation on our site, trying to manage the anti-vax stuff that is circulating, especially on platforms like [Instagram] IG and TikTok where things go viral very fast,” she said.
Coconet has been fighting fire with fire, spreading the right message using humour and social media.
“You can put a 1000 posters up but if it’s the kind of earnest messaging that’s not hitting the demographic then it’s a bit pointless,” Taouma said.
She says there are terrible antivax videos going viral and using very hard-hitting imagery that is emotionally engaging for Pasifika.
“If the right platforms had the resources, we could be doing more message targeting… We need to do more stuff for the younger demographic through the right channels.”
SHARE ME