Tag: misinformation

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Virus Misinformation Spikes as Delta Circumstances Surge

Virus Misinformation Spikes as Delta Cases Surge

In the past few weeks, the vast majority of the most heavily engaged social media posts with misinformation about the coronavirus came from people who came to light last year through questioning the vaccines.

In July, right-wing commentator Candace Owens jumped on the false testimony of the British scientific advisor. “That’s shocking!” She wrote. “60% of people hospitalized in England with # COVID19 have received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the government’s chief scientific adviser.”

After scientific advisor Patrick Vallance corrected himself, Ms. Owens added the correct information to the bottom of her Facebook post. But the post was liked or shared over 62,000 times in the three hours leading up to its update – two-thirds of the total interactions – according to an analysis by the New York Times. In total, the rumor garnered 142,000 likes and shares on Facebook, most of them from Ms. Owens’ post, according to a report by the Virality Project, a consortium of misinformation researchers from institutions like Stanford Internet Observatory and Graphika.

When asked to comment, Ms. Owens said in an email, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested in the New York Times. The people who follow me don’t take your hits seriously. “

Updated

Aug 10, 2021, 7:18 p.m. ET

Also in July, lawyer Thomas Renz appeared in a video claiming 45,000 people had died from coronavirus vaccines. The claim that has been debunked is based on unconfirmed information from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database. The unsubstantiated claim was included in a lawsuit Mr. Renz filed on behalf of an anonymous “whistleblower” in coordination with America’s Frontline Doctors – a right-wing group that has historically spread misinformation about the pandemic.

Mr. Renz’s video has more than 19,000 views on Bitchute. The unsubstantiated claim was repeated by the leading Spanish-speaking Telegram channels, Facebook groups and the conspiracy website Infowars, and it garnered over 120,000 views on the platforms, according to the Virality Project.

In an email, Mr. Renz said his practice “performed the necessary due diligence” to believe the accuracy of the allegations in the lawsuit he filed. “We do not actually believe that the Biden administration is responsible, rather we believe that President Biden, like President Trump before him, was misled by the same group of contradicting bureaucrats,” said Renz.

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How Native Media Spreads Misinformation From Vaccine Skeptics

How Local Media Spreads Misinformation From Vaccine Skeptics

One radio show that appears to have been part of this effect is Coast to Coast AM, which airs on 640 local stations and reaches nearly three million listeners a week. His host, George Noory, has had Dr. Tenpenny interviewed Robert Kennedy Jr., an attorney and anti-vaccine activist, and Erin Elizabeth, the founder of the Health Nut News website and a vaccine skeptic.

Understand the state of vaccine mandates in the United States

The activists used their segments on the show to reinforce their messages. In an advertising campaign for Dr. For example, Tenpenny’s appearance to discuss the coronavirus in April 2020 said the Coast to Coast AM website, “It claims that there are so many unknowns about testing, tracking, symptoms and other factors that the information we have communicated about the disease are meaningless. “

This line was posted on Dr. Tenpenny shared and tweeted by some of her followers.

In a statement, Mr. Noory said: “We have all views on my program, and that includes people who are against vaccines.”

Vaccine misinformation has also been posted on websites pretending to be local news but which are paid websites. These pages, where articles are ordered and paid for by conservative think tanks, political activists, corporate executives and public relations experts, were created to fill the vacuum left by the loss of local publications.

Recent articles on some of these sites, like Last Frontier News in Alaska and Bowling Green Today in Kentucky, highlighted people who died after receiving the Covid vaccines, without saying that a Times review found it unclear whether the vaccines were responsible were . The stories followed a pattern established on anti-vaccine blogs to pull data from a national database on post-vaccination deaths without explaining the boundaries of the data.

Last Frontier News and Bowling Green Today did not respond to requests for comment.

At least one local radio host recently revoked his anti-vaccination stance. Phil Valentine, a conservative radio host in Tennessee, said in a blog post in December that he would not get the vaccine because his likelihood of dying from the virus was “far less than one percent”.

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Politics

In Louisiana, Public Well being Employees Fight Vaccine Misinformation

In Louisiana, Public Health Workers Combat Vaccine Misinformation

Mayor Adrian Perkins, a Shreveport native and graduate of West Point and Harvard Law School who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was sued last year when he tried one. On Friday, he announced a new advisory urging residents to wear masks indoors, a day after the parish commission voted to postpone action on a mandate.

The falsehoods filling social media feeds dwarf whatever vaccine salesmanship power he has, he said. One complicating phenomenon, he said, was the sharing of misinformation between the Black community, which has a long-held skepticism of vaccines, and a white population that sees the vaccine and virus restrictions as government overreach.

Dr. Whyte framed her struggles getting people vaccinated as part of a broader negligence of public health. She said her department was continually underfunded despite significant rates of syphilis and maternal and infant mortality. It is wrestling with infant vaccinations and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and is fighting an increase in drug overdoses.

Her department has 99 employees, but few for preventing and tracking infectious disease. She oversees one epidemiologist and a community health worker supervisor who has no one to supervise. She is starting to see some help from federal funding appropriated during the pandemic: She plans to hire three community health workers soon, a social worker to replace one who retired years ago, and at least one more epidemiologist, most likely with funds provided by the C.D.C. She manages contact tracing with a small team.

As Dr. Whyte explained the city’s challenges in an interview, Calandre Singh, an epidemiologist in Shreveport for the state health department, interrupted with a warning. The funeral for a police deputy in neighboring Webster Parish was set for the next day and was likely to draw hundreds of people indoors, likely without masks — a possible superspreading event. Dr. Whyte and her team consulted with the organizers, who promised to enforce social distancing and a mask requirement. No outbreak has been tied to the event thus far, she said.

Within a month, Dr. Whyte anticipates even knottier debates about the need for masks and vaccines in schools. Federal regulators have not yet authorized the vaccine for the youngest children, but those 12 to 15 have been eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine since May.

At times over the last year, Dr. Whyte has felt so emotionally wrung out that she has been tempted to quit. Her otherwise healthy husband, a physician, spent two months on a ventilator last year, an experience she describes vividly in her pitches to community members about vaccination. The exchange with Ms. Peavy at the City Council meeting had left her angry and depleted.

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The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation On-line

The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online

For the past ten years, Dr. Mercola built a huge company to promote natural health regimens, spread and benefit from anti-vaccination content, said researchers who studied its network. In 2017, he filed an affidavit claiming his net worth was “over $ 100 million”.

And instead of saying directly online that vaccines aren’t working, Dr. Mercola’s posts often ask specific questions about her safety and discuss studies that other doctors have refuted. Facebook and Twitter have allowed some of its posts to be kept cautious, and companies have struggled to establish rules to remove nuanced posts.

“He was breathed new life through social media, which he cleverly and ruthlessly exploited to captivate people,” said Imran Ahmed, director of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which investigates misinformation and hate speech. His “Disinformation Dozen” report has been quoted in Congressional hearings and by the White House.

In an email, Dr. Mercola, it is “quite strange for me that I am being referred to as number 1 in disseminating misinformation”. Some of his Facebook posts were only liked by hundreds of people, he said, so he didn’t understand “how the relatively small number of shares in Biden’s multi-billion dollar vaccination campaign could so devastate”.

The efforts against him are political, added Dr. Mercola added, accusing the White House of “illegal censorship through collusion with social media companies.”

He did not elaborate on whether his claims about the coronavirus were real. “I am the lead author of a peer-reviewed publication on vitamin D and the risk of Covid-19 and I have the right to inform the public by sharing my medical research,” he said. He failed to identify the publication, and The Times was unable to verify his claim.

Updated

July 24, 2021, 10:55 a.m. ET

Dr. Mercola is from Chicago and started a small private practice 1985 in Schaumburg, Illinois. He switched to naturopathy in the 1990s and opened his main website Mercola.com to share his treatments, cures and advice. The website urges people to “take control of your health”.

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White Home Dispute Exposes Fb Blind Spot on Misinformation

White House Dispute Exposes Facebook Blind Spot on Misinformation

“The suggestion that we did not allocate resources to combat Covid misinformation and aid vaccine roll-out is simply not supported by the facts,” said Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman. “With no standard definition of vaccine misinformation and with both false and true content (often shared by mainstream media) that may discourage vaccine adoption, we focus on the results – we measure whether people using Facebook have Covid Accept -19 vaccines. ”

Facebook executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have said the company has pledged to remove Covid-19 misinformation since the beginning of the pandemic. The company said it has removed over 18 million Covid-19 misinformation since the pandemic began.

Experts investigating disinformation said the number of parts removed from Facebook wasn’t as revealing, how many were uploaded to the site, or what groups and pages people saw misinformation spreading.

“You have to open the black box that represents your content ranking and content amplification architecture. Take that black box and open it for review by independent researchers and the government, ”said Imran Ahmed, executive director of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit dedicated to combating disinformation. “We don’t know how many Americans have been infected with misinformation.”

Ahmed’s group, using publicly available data from CrowdTangle, a program owned by Facebook, found that 12 people were responsible for 65 percent of the Covid-19 misinformation on Facebook. The White House, including Mr Biden, repeated that number over the past week. Facebook says it disagrees with the characterization of the “dozen of disinformation,” adding that some of their pages and accounts have been removed while others stop posting content that violates Facebook rules.

Renée DiResta, a disinformation researcher at Stanford Internet Observatory, urged Facebook to post more detailed data that would allow experts to understand how false claims about the vaccine affect certain communities in the country. The information known as “prevalence data” essentially examines how widespread a narrative is, e.g. B. What percentage of the people in a community see them on duty.

“The reason more detailed prevalence data is needed is because false claims are not spread equally among all audiences,” said Ms. DiResta. “To effectively counter certain false claims that communities see, civil society organizations and researchers need a better understanding of what is happening in these groups.”

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Infectious illness knowledgeable says Covid vaccine misinformation is ‘killing individuals’

Not prudent to deploy vaccine boosters at this point: Ex-FDA director

Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, expressed concern about the spread of misinformation about Covid vaccines on social media.

“I think social media plays a huge role in amplifying misinformation that is leading people not to take the vaccine, which is killing them,” Bhadelia told CNBC on Friday. “It’s the honest truth. Covid is a vaccine-preventable disease at the moment.”

President Joe Biden said Friday that platforms like Facebook are killing people by allowing misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines through their services. He went back those comments on Monday, mainly accusing the platform’s users of sharing misinformation.

Bhadelia cited results from the Kaiser Family Fund poll, which found that 54% of Americans either believe or cannot tell whether a common Covid vaccine myth is fact or fiction.

The US is struggling with a drop in vaccination rates and an increase in infections. All 50 states have reported an increase in Covid cases over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University. The US has an average of more than 26,000 new cases a day, and that’s the highest number in two months, according to Johns Hopkins.

Bhadelia told CNBC The News with Shepard Smith that she believes social media companies can do a lot more to stop the spread of disinformation.

“You have to invest a lot more resources and improve your balance to clear that information faster, invest more resources in changing your matrix, because right now what is on top of your page is not right, but what it is is popular, “said Bhadelia, a medical worker for NBC News.

She also suggested that social media companies should partner with public health officials more to get the right information out to the people.

Facebook spoke out against the White House claims.

“We will not be distracted by allegations that are not supported by the facts,” said a spokesman. “The fact is, more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook helps save lives. Point.”

Correction: This article has been updated to include Dr. Nahid Bhadelia’s view that “social media plays a huge role in amplifying misinformation” about Covid vaccines. An earlier version misinterpreted your quote.

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Twitter Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene for Posting Coronavirus Misinformation

Twitter Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene for Posting Coronavirus Misinformation

SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter announced Monday that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene would be suspended from her duty for 12 hours after posting news that violated her policy on disclosing misleading information about the coronavirus.

Ms. Greene, a Republican from Georgia, was a staunch opponent of vaccines and masks as a means of containing the pandemic. In tweets on Sunday and Monday, she argued that Covid-19 is not dangerous for people unless they are obese or over 65 and said vaccines shouldn’t be required.

But coronavirus cases are on the rise, and the highly contagious Delta variant accounts for more than half of new infections in the U.S., federal health officials said this month. In Ms. Greene’s home state of Georgia, new cases have increased 193 percent in the past two weeks.

Twitter said Ms. Greene’s tweets were misinformation and banned her from duty until Tuesday. “We have taken enforcement action against the @mtgreenee account for violating the Twitter rules, in particular the misleading Covid 19 information guidelines,” said a Twitter spokesman. The company also added labels to Ms. Greene’s posts about the vaccines, calling them “misleading” and pointing out information about the safety of the vaccines.

In a statement, Ms. Greene said Silicon Valley companies are working with the White House to attack freedom of expression. “These big tech companies are doing the Biden regime’s commandments to restrict our voices and prevent the distribution of messages that are not state-approved,” she said.

Twitter took action after President Biden urged social media companies to do more to combat the spread of vaccine misinformation on their platforms. On Friday, Mr Biden said sites like Facebook “kill people” by allowing misinformation to flourish freely, adding, “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that – and they are killing people . “

His statement ended weeks of frustration in the White House over the spread of online misinformation that resulted in hesitant vaccination, health officials say.

Facebook, which took the brunt of the criticism, argued that Mr Biden’s testimony was unfounded. “The Biden government has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies,” said Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, in a blog post on Saturday. “The fact is that the adoption of vaccines by Facebook users in the US has increased.”

On Monday, the president softened his criticism, saying that it was not Facebook but certain users who were responsible for the spread of misinformation. The company should do more to combat “the outrageous misinformation” spreading on its platform, rather than taking what he said as a personal insult, added Mr Biden.

Twitter has long banned users from sharing misinformation about the coronavirus that could cause harm. In March, the company introduced a policy outlining penalties for sharing lies about the virus and vaccines.

Updated

July 19, 2021, 9:32 p.m. ET

“We have seen the emergence of persistent conspiracy theories, alarmist rhetoric that is unfounded in research or credible reporting, and a wide range of unfounded rumors that, out of context, can deter the public from making informed decisions about their health and individuals, Families and communities at risk, “the company said in its policy against the disclosure of Covid misinformation.

Individuals who violate this policy are subject to escalating penalties known as strikes and could face a permanent ban if they repeatedly spread misinformation about the virus. A twelve-hour ban, as Ms. Greene learns, is Twitter’s response to users who have either two or three strikes. After four strikes, Twitter bans users for seven days, and after five strikes, Twitter bans the user altogether.

Other Republicans who have been banned from Twitter have complained that the social media company is censoring them.

In January, Twitter banned President Donald J. Trump after the company found his social media posts played a role in inciting violence during the riot in the U.S. Capitol. Mr Trump has argued that Twitter and Facebook, which also blocked his account, censored him, saying the companies need government oversight.

Ms. Greene had previously been banned from Twitter in April, but the company said it was a bug caused by one of its automated spam and abuse detection systems.

“Everyone knows this is a LIE and it wasn’t a mistake,” Ms. Greene tweeted after her suspension was lifted.

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‘They’re killing individuals’ with vaccine misinformation

‘They’re killing people’ with vaccine misinformation

President Joe Biden said Friday that platforms like Facebook are killing people by allowing misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines through their services.

When asked what his message was regarding Covid disinformation on platforms like Facebook, Biden said: “They kill people”.

“I mean, they really, you see, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that is – they kill people,” said Biden on the South Lawn of the White House.

Biden echoed previous comments made by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

“We are dealing with life or death here, so everyone has a role to play in making sure there is accurate information,” said Psaki. “They are a private sector company. They will make decisions about additional steps they can take. It is clear that more can be done.”

Psaki’s comments come a day after she said the Biden government reported problematic posts for Facebook that spread misinformation.

“We regularly make sure social media platforms are aware of the latest dangerous public health narratives that we and many other Americans see on all social and traditional media,” she said. “We are working to work with them to better understand the enforcement of the guidelines for social media platforms.”

An example highlighted by Psaki is the spread of a false narrative that coronavirus vaccines cause infertility.

“This is disturbing, but an ongoing narrative that we and many have seen, and we want to know that social media platforms are taking steps to address it,” said Psaki. “This is inaccurate, incorrect information.”

Psaki noted that Facebook and other social media services can take additional steps to combat misinformation. This includes publicly sharing the impact of misinformation on their services, promoting quality information, and taking faster action against harmful posts.

“As you all know, information travels pretty quickly,” she said. “If it’s up there for days, when people see it, it’s hard to put that back in a box.”

Facebook spoke out against the White House claims.

“We will not be distracted by allegations that are not supported by the facts,” said a spokesman. “The fact is, more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook helps save lives. Point.”

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Physician agrees with Biden that Fb is ‘killing folks’ with Covid misinformation

Not prudent to deploy vaccine boosters at this point: Ex-FDA director

Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, told CNBC that from a medical standpoint, she agrees with President Joe Biden’s claim that platforms like Facebook are killing people by putting misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines in theirs Allow services.

“I think social media plays a huge role in spreading misinformation that leads people not to take the vaccine, which is killing them,” said Bhadelia. “It’s the honest truth. Covid is a vaccine-preventable disease at the moment.”

Bhadelia cited results from the Kaiser Family Fund poll, which found that 54% of Americans either believe or cannot tell whether a common Covid vaccine myth is fact or fiction.

The US is struggling with a drop in vaccination rates and an increase in infections. All 50 states have reported spikes in Covid cases over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The US has an average of more than 26,000 new cases a day, and that’s the highest number in two months, according to Johns Hopkins.

Bhadelia told CNBC The News with Shepard Smith that she believes social media companies can do a lot more to stop the spread of disinformation.

“You have to invest a lot more resources and improve your balance to clear that information faster, invest more resources in changing your matrix, because right now what is on top of your page is not right, but what it is is popular, “said Bhadelia, a medical worker for NBC News.

She also suggested that social media companies should partner with public health officials more to get the right information out to the people.

Facebook spoke out against the White House claims.

“We will not be distracted by allegations that are not supported by the facts,” said a spokesman. “The fact is, more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook helps save lives. Point.”

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Surgeon Normal Assails Tech Corporations Over Misinformation on Covid-19

Surgeon General Assails Tech Companies Over Misinformation on Covid-19

President Biden’s surgeon general used his first formal piece of advice to the United States on Thursday to deliver a broadside against tech and social media companies that he accused of not doing enough to spread dangerous health misinformation – in particular about Covid-19 – stop.

The officer, Dr. Vivek Murthy declared such misinformation to be “an urgent threat to public health”. His announcement came just days after his office representatives met with Twitter officials, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Surgeons in general have traditionally used advice – brief statements designed to draw Americans’ attention to a public health problem and make recommendations for its resolution – to talk about health topics such as tobacco use, opioid addiction, suicide prevention, and breastfeeding.

But dr. Murthy’s Counselor, a 22-page report with footnotes, had a more political context. Fox News presenters like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, along with their guests, are among those who have raised doubts about Covid-19 vaccines, which studies show are very effective in preventing death and hospitalization from the disease.

Dr. Murthy formulated his criticism of technology companies in a broader statement about the dangers of inaccurate and inaccurate health information, including misinformation about coronavirus vaccinations. He urged all Americans to endeavor to share correct information and said the United States needs “a societal approach” to address the problem.

But at a press conference on Thursday, Dr. Murthy appealed to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, making it clear that technology and social media companies are his primary target, saying they have a unique responsibility to be more aggressive against misinformation and citing Facebook by name.

“Modern technology companies have allowed misinformation to poison our information environment without being held accountable to their users,” said Dr. Murthy.

“We expect more from our tech companies,” he added. “We ask them to work with greater transparency and accountability. We ask you to monitor misinformation more closely. “

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube said Thursday that they have taken steps to crack down on misleading health information in line with their coronavirus misinformation guidelines. All three said they had introduced features to direct users to authoritative health sources on their platforms.

“We are permanently banning pages, groups and accounts that repeatedly violate our Covid misinformation rules, and that includes more than a dozen pages, groups and accounts from some of the people referred to in the press conference today,” said Dani Lever, a spokeswoman for Facebook.

Updated

July 15, 2021, 7:14 p.m. ET

YouTube said in a statement that it welcomes many aspects of the surgeon general’s report. Twitter said it agreed with Dr. Murthy’s approach and welcomed his partnership.

Calling tech and media companies out is a tricky business, and the White House has raised the question of whether it would try to regulate companies like Facebook that have become platforms for health disinformation. Asked about this at her briefing on Wednesday, Ms. Psaki was non-binding.

“Of course, decisions to regulate or hold a platform accountable would certainly be a political decision,” she said. “But in the meantime we will continue to shout disinformation and indicate where this information is going.”

Hours after Dr. Murthy announced in a press release by the Rockefeller Foundation that it would allocate $ 13.5 million in new funding to step up coronavirus response efforts in the United States, Africa, India and Latin America, and in particular “health.” To fight grievances ”. – and disinformation. “

The Digital Public Library of America also said it will work with the surgeon general by bringing together librarians, scholars, journalists and citizen leaders to discuss the role libraries can play in combating misinformation.

Misinformation about social distancing, mask use, treatments, and vaccines was rampant during the pandemic. The report is a sign that the Biden government is more determined to face this in the face of a sharp drop in the number of new vaccinations. Less than 50 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and many top health experts have urged the president to do more to reach people who haven’t been vaccinated.

While nationwide cases and hospital admissions remain relatively low, more local hotspots are emerging and national trends are moving in the wrong direction, fueled by the spread of the more contagious delta variant. Vaccines are effective against the variant. Counties that voted for Mr Biden had higher vaccination rates on average than those that voted for former President Donald J. Trump. Conservatives are far more likely to reject vaccinations than Democrats.

The General Surgeon’s report is eagerly apolitical and does not identify any specific providers of misinformation. But some Republican leaders, worried the virus is spreading rapidly in conservative parts of the country, are beginning to promote vaccination and speak out against media and elected officials who cast doubts about vaccines.

Health misinformation is not a new phenomenon – and is not limited to the news media. In the 1990s, the report said that “a poorly designed study” – later withdrawn – falsely claimed that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused autism. “Even after the withdrawal, the claim gained momentum and contributed to lower vaccination rates over the next 20 years,” the report said.

It cites evidence of the spread of misinformation, including a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found in late May that 67 percent of unvaccinated adults had heard at least one Covid-19 vaccine myth and either believed it to be true or unsafe. An analysis of millions of social media posts in Science Magazine found that hoaxes are 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories.

Another recent study showed that even brief exposure to misinformation reduces the likelihood that people will want a vaccine, the surgeon general said.