'Disinformation Dozen' unearthed as force behind fanciful vaccine claims

A Reddit user was pleading for help: He finally got the high-paying job he desperately needed with his financial struggles. The company mandates COVID-19 vaccines for its employees. His girlfriend was fully vaccinated and was trying to persuade him to get jabbed.

The snag is, he believes the vaccine is dangerous and wanted to find a way to keep his job without being vaccinated. That's when he got plenty of advice and, in doing so, provided the rest of us with yet another window into the world of disinformation in the pandemic era.

One user advised him to quit, saying the vaccine is part of a depopulation plan. "Why would you risk your life for money?" asked the user on the social media platform.

The vaccine-shy poster on Reddit didn't update his fellow users on his eventual decision. But his story shows that what people believe about vaccines depends on where they get their information.

A recent study concluded that a dozen people are responsible for disseminating most of the false information out there about vaccines.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, or CCDH, analyzed online data and found that 12 people, which it called the "Disinformation Dozen", are the original sources of 65 percent of anti-vaccine content circulating on major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook was found to contain the most disinformation. The study's analysis of two months' data showed that up to 73 percent of anti-vaccine content originated from the Disinformation Dozen.

Among the dozen are physicians that have embraced pseudoscience, a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, a religious zealot, and, most notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr, according to The Guardian. Kennedy Jr has been against vaccines for years and has claimed that they are linked to autism.

The study tracked 425 anti-vaccine accounts and found their total following among users across platforms stood at 59.2 million. And 20 anti-vaccine individuals accounted for more than two-thirds of the total.

The CCDH also found that the platforms failed to act on 95 percent of the COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation reported to them.

Anti-vaccine messages promoted by the 12 people include the claim that Microsoft founder Bill Gates plans to inject everyone with microchips by administering COVID-19 vaccines. Other messages talk of the medical industry's plan to create a chronically ill population, that the vaccine is part of the plan to reset the global economic system, and the Pfizer vaccine has killed more people than the coronavirus. Then there are the claims that the vaccines target black people and the pandemic is fake.

The CCDH's top spot went to Joseph Mercola, a physician who makes money selling health-related products and information.

Over the years, Mercola received warnings from the Food and Drug Administration numerous times for selling unapproved health products. The Federal Trade Commission brought false-advertising claims against tanning beds he sold in 2017.As a result, Mercola refunded the customers $2.95 million.

His book, The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal, was published in April. It has a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr and has become a bestseller on Amazon with more than 1,800 comments and a rating of 4.7 stars.

'Conspiracy lunacy'

A few one-star rating reviewers called Mercola "another person making cash by selling conspiracy lunacy".

One reviewer wrote: "Obviously untrue information packaged with a misleading title. Pseudoscientific and dangerous. Needs to be taken down immediately or reviewed by medical professionals."

However, most reviewers－89 percent－gave the book five stars. Some even called Mercola a "hero" for going against the mainstream views.

In July, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a warning about the threat of health misinformation and criticized social media companies for not having done enough to stop the spread of it.

US President Joe Biden said that social media platforms like Facebook were "killing people" by allowing disinformation about the coronavirus vaccine to spread online.

To tone down his harsh criticism of social media, Biden later said his remark was in response to the Disinformation Dozen report.

"These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It is killing people. It's bad information," Biden said.

A 2014 study aimed at promoting vaccination found that messages in the form of images, text or numbers did little to persuade anti-vaccine parents to increase their intention to vaccinate their children.

What's more, there is a psychological "backfire effect" that could cause people to strengthen their support for a certain piece of misinformation each time they hear an attempt to refute it.

That's why some experts, such as Steven Salzberg, professor of biomedical engineering, computer science and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University, called for the removal of the social media accounts of the 12 because they are "indirectly killing people by their actions".

"This isn't a free speech or First Amendment issue; private companies aren't required to provide a platform for anyone," he wrote in a Forbes opinion article. "If these companies care at all about public health, and about the health of their own customers, they'll delete all the accounts associated with these 12 people."

So far, some social media accounts of the 12 have been taken off various social media platforms, but their online presence didn't disappear.

Mercola's being placed atop the list seems to have discouraged few of his followers.

On Aug 4, Mercola published a video statement on his website as well as on YouTube that he will delete his content 48 hours after he publishes it.

"These will be removed to appease the individuals in power who have an arsenal of overwhelming tools at their disposal and are actively engaged in using them," he said in the video, adding that it was up to his followers to help spread his work.

His video on YouTube has been viewed more than 357,000 times and generated almost 3,000 comments within days. The overwhelming majority of the messages support him and condemn the media and government for "censoring" him.

"Just saw the CNN hit piece on The Daily Caller. They listed the facts you listed as misinformation when it's all true. This is disturbing," one YouTube user commented, representing the sentiment of most commenters.

Citing his First Amendment rights, Mercola "debunks" the CNN report about him to get more attention from his followers.

Rachel Moran, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online conspiracy theories, told The New York Times that Mercola was "trying to come up with his own strategies of avoiding his content being taken down, while also playing up this martyrdom of being an influential figure in the movement who keeps being targeted".

The unvaccinated population has been driving up the infection numbers in recent weeks, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy analysis institute. It reported late last month that coronavirus cases among those not fully vaccinated ranged from 94.1 percent in Arizona to 99.85 percent in Connecticut.

The share of hospitalizations among those with COVID-19 who are not fully vaccinated ranged from 95.02 percent in Alaska to 99.93 percent in New Jersey, according to the foundation.

In Texas, the vaccination rate is relatively low with 44.6 percent of the eligible population fully covered as of Monday. It has become one of the hot spots of COVID-19 infection spikes along with other states with low vaccination rates such as Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

It is reported that dozens of Texas hospitals are running out of intensive-care beds as more than 9,400 are occupied by COVID-19 patients.

"This surge is by far the fastest and most aggressive that we've seen. Almost all of our hospitalizations are due to unvaccinated patients developing severe illness," Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County's health authority, said in a statement last week. He implored people to get vaccinated.