'Disinformation Dozen' Pushes Most Antivaccine Content

Twelve people are responsible for 73% of COVID misinformation on Facebook. A group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate says it looked at content posted on Facebook and antivaccine Facebook groups in February and March, and then monitored how the content was shared. The group says antivaccine influencers make money from their misinformation campaigns, too. Facebook says it has taken down more antivaccine content since the CCDH story was released, NPR reports. John Gregory of NewsGuard, a group that rates news website credibility, says his company has tracked the same dozen misinformation peddlers.

“It’s almost like conspiracy theory Mad Libs. They just inserted new claims,” he said. State and federal elected officials have asked social media giants to ban these accounts. Facebook and Twitter have begun labeling posts. Facebook has removed some and restricted others. One serial offender, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who appears to believe vaccines cause autism and the 5G cellular network is somehow related to the COVID pandemic, was removed from Instagram, per the Guardian. The antivaccine influencers include Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Rizza Islam, Christiane Northrup, and Ben Tapper, Mashable reports. (More conspiracy theory stories.)