The global anti-vaccination industry, including influencers and followers, generates up to $1.1 billion in annual revenue for social media giants, according to a damning new report published this week. Anti-vaccine content creates a vast amount of engagement for leading technology platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, with an estimated total social media audience of 62 million people. The arrangement works both ways, with the anti-vax industry earning up to $36million a year.

The Center for Digital Hate, based in Washington D.C., has called on social media companies to deplatform leading anti-vaxxers, who are responsible for the majority of vaccine misinformation generated online. The Center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, said that the $36 million estimate was conservative and that their real profits could be much higher. 

In March, the Center identified a “disinformation dozen” of influencers who have been responsible for almost two-thirds of all anti-vaccine social media content shared or posted in February and March. According to Ahmed, influencers’ confidence in spreading propaganda online comes from “years of impunity,” during which they have been allowed to broadcast their message without consequences. 

A Facebook company spokesperson disputed the report’s estimates about advertising revenue generated by anti-vaxxers, adding: “We are running the world’s largest online vaccine information campaign, labelling every post regarding the vaccines with accurate information and we’ve removed profiles, pages and content identified in these reports. During the pandemic we’ve removed 18 million pieces of harmful misinformation about Covid-19 and worked with 80 fact-checking organizations to label over 167m posts as false.”