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New from me. And it's important. Conspiracies like Plandemic endanger healthcare workers. Here's how. https://medium.com/@melissaryan/how-plandemic-endangers-healthcare-workers-982dce6676f7
By now you've probably seen the Plandemic video or someone referencing it on Facebook. It was everywhere this week. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/coronavirus-plandemic-viral-harmful-fauci-mikovits?origin=shp
If you want to know how/why it spread. @3r1nG's Medium post is essential reading. https://medium.com/@erin_gallagher/facebook-groups-and-youtube-enabled-viral-spread-of-plandemic-disinformation-f1a279335e8c
The video features an interview with an anti-vaxx medical “researcher” whose “research” was debunked by @snopes Snopes two years ago. It’s staged to look like a television news interview and ties these debunked claims to the current Coronavirus pandemic. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scientist-vaccine-jailed/
The move to reopen is composed of various extremist groups and Anti-vaxxers are now part of that coalition. Anti-vaxxers have been an organizing presence at many of the protests we’ve seen over the last few weeks. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/anti-vaxxers-coronavirus-protests.html
This pandemic has given Anti-vaxxers an unprecedented opportunity to amplify their message and expand their base of support, and tapping into the reopen movement has proven to be a successful way to do it.
Here’s what worries me. The Anti-vaxx folks do an alarming amount of online harassment, including harassing healthcare workers. Doctors who speak publicly in support of vaccines are routinely the targets of online harassment campaigns. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/27/facebook-anti-vaxx-harassment-campaigns-doctors-fight-back
This harassment happens offline too. Viral conspiracy theories like Plandemic will only make this problem worse. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/anti-vaccine-groups-take-dangerous-harassment-offline-real-world-n1096461
Just this week @oneunderscore__ wrote how healthcare workers are bombarded with “misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic.” https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/what-are-we-doing-doctors-are-fed-conspiracies-ravaging-ers-n1201446?fbclid=IwAR2DuuqhcE7dj4um9vV_3PU0N1hOtb8AgRhagjF3FwQR0YpZ-kGK0PAX0Us
We’re dangerously close to the stage where Alex Jones/Anti-vaxx/QAnon-world starts accusing healthcare workers of being crisis actors or something similar.
Especially if the Trump Administration follows through on a plan, first reported by @Axios, to “begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically.” https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-death-toll-d8ba60a4-316b-4d1e-8595-74970c15fb34.html
Trump is piling onto another conspiracy that pro-Trump media has been claiming for weeks: that doctors and hospitals are marking the cause of death for patients as COVID-19, even when it isn’t, to receive more federal funding. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/coronavirus-death-toll-presidential-campaign.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The right-wing extremists only add fuel to the fire. Former far-right Senate candidate and current Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward has suggested that nurses who have counter-protested at these events aren’t actual healthcare workers. https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2020/04/22/leave-kelly-ward-insult-icu-nurse-who-stood-silently-protest/3005132001/
And in Pennsylvania, a Salute to Nurses ceremony was crashed by a man waving a gun and threatening to hurt people from the driver’s seat of his SUV. https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/salute-to-nurses-parade-crashed-by-gun-waving-suv-driver-who-leads-pa-cops-on-chase.html
By now we’ve seen this play out many times. We know what the worst-case scenario is: a terrorist who was radicalized online showing up at a hospital or targeting healthcare workers for violence.
We know disinformation and conspiracies continue to thrive online, and that tech companies, as a rule, will only take meaningful action when it’s a PR problem so big they can’t ignore it.
What can we do? Tech accountability campaigns are especially important right now. Two I want to highlight for you. Both from organizations with track records of getting wins:
1. @Avaaz Avaaz has organized an open letter from more than top health professionals to the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Youtube urging them to “stop giving oxygen” to COVID-19 lies and conspiracy theories. https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/health_disinfo_letter/
2. @SumOfUs SumOfUs has a petition to the social media platforms that anyone can sign, calling on them to “treat all coronavirus disinformation the same — even when it comes from official sources like Donald Trump, or news sources like Fox." https://actions.sumofus.org/a/trump-s-coronavirus-disinformation/
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