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Abstract Firearm injuries are a leading cause of death in the United States, surpassing fatalities from motor vehicle crashes. Despite this significant public health risk, Americans continue to purchase firearms in large quantities. Commonly cited drivers of firearm acquisition include fear of violent crime, fear of mass shootings, and panic-buying. Additionally, advocacy groups’ activity on social media may capitalize on emotions like fear and influence firearm acquisition. The simultaneous effects of these variables have not been explored in a causal framework. In this study, we aim to elucidate the causal roles of media coverage of firearm laws and regulations, media coverage of mass shootings, media coverage of violent crimes, and the Twitter activity of anti- and proregulation advocacy groups in short-term firearm acquisition in the United States. We collect daily time series for these variables from 2012 to 2020 and employ the PCMCI+ framework to investigate the causal structures among them simultaneously. Our results indicate that the Twitter activity of antiregulation advocacy groups directly drives firearm acquisitions. We also find that media coverage of firearm laws and regulations and media coverage of violent crimes influence firearm acquisition. Although media coverage of mass shootings and online activity of proregulation organizations are potential drivers of firearm acquisition, in the short term, only the lobbying efforts of antiregulation organizations on social media and specific media coverage appear to influence individuals’ decisions to purchase firearms. 

Abstract Perceived experts (i.e. medical professionals and biomedical scientists) are trusted sources of medical information who are especially effective at encouraging vaccine uptake. The role of perceived experts acting as potential antivaccine influencers has not been characterized systematically. We describe the prevalence and importance of antivaccine perceived experts by constructing a coengagement network of 7,720 accounts based on a Twitter data set containing over 4.2 million posts from April 2021. The coengagement network primarily broke into two large communities that differed in their stance toward COVID-19 vaccines, and misinformation was predominantly shared by the antivaccine community. Perceived experts had a sizable presence across the coengagement network, including within the antivaccine community where they were 9.8% of individual, English-language users. Perceived experts within the antivaccine community shared low-quality (misinformation) sources at similar rates and academic sources at higher rates compared to perceived nonexperts in that community. Perceived experts occupied important network positions as central antivaccine users and bridges between the antivaccine and provaccine communities. Using propensity score matching, we found that perceived expertise brought an influence boost, as perceived experts were significantly more likely to receive likes and retweets in both the antivaccine and provaccine communities. There was no significant difference in the magnitude of the influence boost for perceived experts between the two communities. Social media platforms, scientific communications, and biomedical organizations may focus on more systemic interventions to reduce the impact of perceived experts in spreading antivaccine misinformation.