Covid-19 Disinformation Online
Happy New Year readers, this is the first Medium article of 2022 and today’s article will be discussing the disinformation, conspiracies and pseudoscience around SARS-CoV-2. Studies will be attached, going into a brief explanation of the disinformation into Covid and other things. Without further ado, let’s continue.
➡ Summary
Vaccine Hesitancy and antivaxx false theories have been prominent since the beginning of this pandemic, with wild fake theories from gene therapy to the vaccine being “experimental” (which anyone without a pea sized brain knows isn’t the case). Disinformation in a pandemic can be detrimental to vaccination programmes and spur on mad opinions that gullible people, unfortunately, believe in, to make matters even worse, the majority of anti-vaxxers cannot be debated with as they would be so far entrenched on their lies anything outside of this echo chamber would be considered that you work for the cabal or on the payroll of Bill Gates (yes people actually say this).
Anti-vaccine rhetoric in the recent 18 months has seen people discharge themselves from the hospital and later die, NHS staff being resorted to verbal and physical assault and people just acting absolutely stupid (know quite a few in my local area, won’t name any).
People like Robert Malone (who is not the mRNA vaccine inventor), Vanden Bossche and other propagandists need to be ashamed of themselves for helping pseudoscience and fake theories thrive that laymen’s anti-vaxxers eat up like an 18 Carat Gold sandwich bar.
➡ Studies into Covid-19 misinformation/pseudoscience
A study in the U.K. and the U.S. found that exposure to online misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines reduced the number of people who said they would get vaccinated and increased the number of people who said they would not. (Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01056-1)
This study from ScienceDirect goes into great detail about the disinformation pandemic that’s been happening and continues to happen online every day. One highlight bullet point quote from this study — “Vaccine hesitancy is increasing in the US and worldwide, and medical misinformation is a significant contributor to this declining acceptance of vaccines.” (Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211883721000435?via%3Dihub)
Sciencemag goes even further and looks into the spread of true and false news online in general. (Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap9559)
A network exposure study that is on the Journal of Medical Internet Research look at vaccine misinformation on YouTube and the detrimental effect this can have on people. (Source: https://www.jmir.org/2021/1/e23262)
Evidence suggests that infodemic superspreaders engage in coordinated sharing of content, which increases their effectiveness in spreading disinformation and, correspondingly, makes it all the more important to block them. (Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517211013861 )
➡ The Disinformation Dozen
Come to the surprising realisation that there are 12 quacks that are at fault for most of the scientific lies being spread on the internet about vaccines, the pandemic and this REAL virus (if the virus is “real” triggers you, you’re on the wrong article).
Amongst that twelve is an environmental lawyer and anti-vax mouthpiece Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has been delightfully taken off Instagram last year, Robert Malone has now been suspended on Twitter, but these idiots will claim censorship because their dangerous views are being removed and rightfully so as they hold no basis in science whatsoever. (Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes?t=1641327169037)
According to WebMD two-thirds of scientific lies and misinformation online come from the Misinformation Dozen.
(Source: https://www.webmd.com/children/vaccines/news/20210325/disinformation-dozen-driving-anti-vaccine-content)
➡ Conclusion
Get your proper information from reliable experts that know what they’re talking about and not spreading disinformation. Read peer-reviewed studies, do some background research on every claim you see online and see if it’s actually real instead of blindly believing it. Misinformation is dangerous and has the potential to kill people. Get boosted, get vaccinated.
💥 Thanks for reading, Lawrence. Please consider a small contribution, in the form of a beer as all articles are created in my small amount of spare time: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LawrenceRob