On Thursday, Nov. 4, the Biden Administration officially rolled out two different vaccine rules that cover 100 million private sector workers. The first rule, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), states that companies with 100 or more employees must ensure that their employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4. If employees do not get vaccinated by this deadline, they will be required to test negative for COVID-19 at least once a week.

Under the OSHA rule, employers must pay workers for the time off taken to receive the vaccine as well as sick leave for employees who experience side effects. To encourage employees to choose vaccinations over weekly testing, the rule also states that employers are not required to pay for weekly testing. However, agreements with unions may require employers to pay. Unvaccinated employees are also required to wear face coverings at work.

Companies that fail to comply with the OSHA rule may be subject to serious fines. Some major companies have already mandated vaccines, including 3M, IBM, Procter & Gamble, and others. However, other companies have been more hestitant to issue mandates and have been waiting for government clarification on a number of questions.

We know what the experts are saying, but what has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a keyword search for “OSHA” and “Vaccinated,” “OSHA” and “Biden Administration,” and “OSHA.” The term “Biden Administration” has been widely used and is not specific enough to be included in the search. While this search may not be fully extensive, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

On Nov. 4 when the news was announced, the search found 250,000+ mentions discussing this topic. By Nov. 6 at 11:59 pm, the search found 329,646 mentions across all platforms. The overall sentiment of the search was 8% positive and 92% negative. To get a better look at the conversation and the sentiment surrounding this topic, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding the news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to the search. We found that #donotcomply, #osha, #nosha, and #texas were at the top. The hashtag #donotcomply is widely being used in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates. When searching the keyword “OSHA,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion were “Vaccine Mandate,” “Employees,” “Rule,” and “Companies.”

Who exactly is engaging in this conversation? It appears that the majority of mentions surrounding this topic are from male Twitter users in the 18-35 age demographic in the United States. The top influencers on Twitter are primarily news outlets, including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC News. Other influencers include journalists and political commentators such as Shannon Bream, Charlie Kirk, and Ben Shapiro.

BREAKING: 5th Circuit temporarily blocks OSHA vaccine mandate.

“Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate …” pic.twitter.com/rdhYyiFKml

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) November 6, 2021

Biden’s vaccine mandate is crumbling. Appeals courts in both Texas and Louisiana have temporarily blocked the rule.

They knew it was unconstitutional and they did it anyway. How far will they go to force medical tyranny on all of us?

Keep up the fight. Do Not Comply.

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 6, 2021

The keyword search also revealed that Reddit users are engaging in the subreddits r/Conspiracy and r/Conservative. One of the most popular posts in r/Conservative linked to the official rule by the OSHA on www.federalregister.gov and received 1.2K+ upvotes and 460 comments. The comments contained statements criticizing the rule and the Biden Administration. “Pointing a gun at people’s head provides motivation to do just about anything. Doesn’t make it right,” commented one user.

The volume trend of the conversation has steadily declined since the news was announced. However, this conversation is certainly not over. The vaccine mandate for larger businesses was recently halted by federal appeals court and at least 27 states have filed lawsuits challenging the rule. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the litigation surrounding the mandate in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, we’ll continue monitoring this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

 COVID-19 and Study Abroad

By: Kinley DuRant and Nate Unger

What to know:

COVID-19, more popularly known as the Coronavirus, has been taking a world tour, since its recent outbreak in Wuhan, China.  Ranging from locations is Europe and even the United States. The messages about coronavirus through the use of social media is being taken in a variety of different directions. One big problem with the virus’ global spread, however, is among college students. The virus now poses danger to the thousands of American University students who are studying abroad in foreign countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

The Center for Disease Control has advised colleges and universities to consider postponing or even cancelling upcoming student foreign exchange programs for the foreseeable future. They have issued a Level 3 warning, stating on their website that “travelers avoid all nonessential travel to Italy.” Universities are not hesitating to take action, canceling all current study abroad programs and many summer programs. Colleges like Auburn, Washington University in St. Louis, Rutgers, and even here at Clemson are among dozens of colleges to take efforts to keep their students’ on the mainland.

Here are some of the facts:

• Tweets containing the term “coronavirus” in the past week (February 25^th-March 3^rd), there have been a whopping 28.5 million tweets,
  • spanning the world from the US to Spain and Venezuela, to Nigeria
• Narrowing it down to look at a college perspective: there have been 4.8k Tweets from February 25^th-March 3^rd
  • key words such as
    • “study abroad & covid”
    • “study abroad & cancel”
    • “study abroad & coronavirus”
  • Many of these tweets have been due to universities announcing the cancellations and students replying to it with their dismay, along with students voicing their opinions about future abroad programs.
    • As expected, sentiment is trending towards mostly negative, with 68.8% of all tweets being negative and just 31.2% being positive.

In terms of societal effects, the US is really getting pummeled. The coronavirus has been an economical disaster. Thousands of flights are being canceled, losing millions of dollars for the airline industry, as well as making a dent in the travel and tourism industry. Travel screenings for international travel has become so extensive, with TSA and the government doing their best to ensure that anyone who has been in China recently, been overseas in areas that have been affected. The market has also tanked in the weeks since the coronavirus began to spread. The stock market has become volatile, and with a large portion of the global economy coming from China, the global economy is expected to slow down. On March 3, 2020, the Federal Reserve issued an emergency interest cut rate in an attempt to combat effects of the outbreak, the first time this has happened since the Great Recession in 2008.

As for us here at Clemson University, we need to be on watch. With our Spring Break coming up in just under two weeks, thousands of students are going to be traveling across the country, so they need to be on high alert as they travel. As for study abroad programs, Clemson announced Monday, March 2^nd that all students currently overseas were required to return to campus and all programs were effectively suspended. According to WYFF 4 News, this decision will affect 385 students in 6 countries abroad, along with the 100 or so called back from Italy a few days prior. Associate Vice President of Communication for the university, Joe Gailbreath, stated that an academic advisor would be assigned to each returning student. This has some ripple effects for the university. It may cause panic amongst students at Clemson with those overseas returning to campus, fearing that they may potentially bring back the virus. The university may have to pay for screening and travel to arrange for the students’ prompt return. It also costs the university money in terms of the fact that these students are no longer paying for their programs abroad, as they will almost definitely be refunded in some sort of way. As of this moment (3/3/2020), there have been no recorded cases here at Clemson, but officials are closely monitoring the ordeal.