"Hey Alexa, What do You Know About the COVID-19 Vaccine?" -- (Mis)perceptions of Mass Immunization Among Voice Assistant Users
This addresses the problem of misinformation spread through voice assistants for public health communication, particularly for vulnerable populations, and is incremental as it builds on existing research about moderation gaps in digital platforms.
The study analyzed how Amazon Alexa's lack of soft moderation allows third-party malicious skills to reduce perceived accuracy of COVID-19 vaccine information among users, with results from a 210-participant study showing reduced accuracy on topics like vaccine priority and side effects, and vaccine-hesitant participants being drawn to pessimistic rephrasing.
In this paper, we analyzed the perceived accuracy of COVID-19 vaccine information spoken back by Amazon Alexa. Unlike social media, Amazon Alexa doesn't apply soft moderation to unverified content, allowing for use of third-party malicious skills to arbitrarily phrase COVID-19 vaccine information. The results from a 210-participant study suggest that a third-party malicious skill could successful reduce the perceived accuracy among the users of information as to who gets the vaccine first, vaccine testing, and the side effects of the vaccine. We also found that the vaccine-hesitant participants are drawn to pessimistically rephrased Alexa responses focused on the downsides of the mass immunization. We discuss solutions for soft moderation against misperception-inducing or altogether COVID-19 misinformation malicious third-party skills.