As the Delta variant spreads, vaccine conspiracy groups on Facebook have doubled

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.fastcompany.com/90657622/as-the-delta-variant-spreads-vaccine-conspiracy-groups-on-facebook-have-doubled

President Biden explicitly told reporters last week that Facebook was “killing people,” later clarifying that he hoped his comment would drive the tech company to take action against COVID vaccine misinformation teeming on its website. That site, after YouTube, is the most popular social media platform in the U.S., used by seven in ten Americans, half of whom check their accounts multiple times a day.

Besides engaging with viral anti-vaccine posts from political influencers like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro, many users are also enrolled in anti-COVID vaccine groups that spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the shot. Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog group, recently released research results reporting it had identified 284 of these groups—more than double the 117 they’d found in April—hosting a total of 520,000 members. They assert that Facebook is being “dishonest or willfully ignorant,” and not proactive enough in combatting the spread, as the Delta variant claims more and more lives among the unvaccinated.

Media Matters’ researchers find these groups manually, by searching for common keywords, says Kayla Gogarty, associate director of research. They found groups such as: Canadian Deaths and Adverse Reactions; The Vaccine-Free Child; and Don’t Shed on Me Litigation, which is dedicated to organizing lawsuits “to prevent colleges from trying to mandate the jab…around the country.” That group’s name refers to a conspiracy theory about harmful effects being passed, or “shed,” from vaccinated individuals to unvaccinated women, causing reproductive disturbances like menstrual cycle shifts and miscarriages.

Another group, MTHFR Connections, hosting 28,000 members, spreads conspiracies about the MTHFR gene, a gene within the body that encodes an enzyme that creates an essential protein in the body. The myth is that the vaccine can cause the gene to mutate, and cause issues as outlandish as autism, tied lips and tongues, and a “leaky gut.” (Separately, in a comments section on the group, one user advises another, who was to visit a family member who’s been vaccinated, to prepare their body against shedding by drinking “white pine needle tea.”)

*snip*

[Hugin]

1. MTHFR?

Seriously?

Wow.

[lagomorph777]

2. MTHFR fuckers. Fuckerburger is making a tidy profit on these imbeciles.

[intrepidity]

4. Methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase

Yeah, I thought it was motherfucker gene.


Methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the methyl cycle, and it is encoded by the MTHFR gene.[5] Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase catalyzes the conversion of 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate to 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, a cosubstrate for homocysteine remethylation to methionine.

[Hugin]

7. Okay, okay... It does explain a few other things about the human condition.

Along with the distinct possibility that somewhere in the universe the higher powers are laughing their asses off.

[Texaswitchy]

3. There is no help for these people.

We are going to have covid hell until enough unvaxed people die off.

We the vaxed will get booster shots.

It will be the Spanish flu all over again.

My roommate and I have stocked on food and essentials.

We have a big garden and solar.

Plenty of water.

Sad, this didn't have to happen.

[GoCubsGo]

5. That ANYONE would listen to fucking Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro,

let alone be "influenced" by them absolutely boggles my mind. They are two of dumbest people on the planet, and neither of them have done a damn thing in their lives that even passes for any sort of expertise in anything, beyond the spreading of conspiracies and propaganda.


Hey morons. You know what's causing your "leaky gut"? Your shitty diet.

[Xoan]

6. sure glad SUCKERBERG ...

is on it.

[Solly Mack]

8. Instead of white pine needle tea they should drink Pine-Sol.

Per the great scientist Trump.