Good read: Anti Vaxxer propaganda techniques, some of you are in there , seriously

quote:

---

Dr. Celine Gounder:

Well, there are certain strategies that you see or tactics that are used over and over and over again by these disinformation spreaders.

The first is fake experts. So there was a propaganda — anti-vaccine propaganda film that came out this fall that made use of funeral directors and the like to put out disinformation. These are not people who are experts in any way about vaccines, about infectious diseases or immunology. So that's one characteristic.

Then you have what are called logical fallacies, which are essentially mental shortcuts that we use when we're bombarded with information. And a great example of this is, if A happens before B, that does not necessarily mean A caused B. And now 80 percent — over 80 percent of the people in this country have gotten one dose of vaccine. That does not mean that you can attribute all of the deaths that now occur in this country to COVID vaccines.

Then you have impossible expectations. So an example of that are the people who said, I'm going to wait until the FDA issues full approval for vaccines, and then I will know it's safe enough. And then, after the full approval was issued, the goalposts moved, and they said, no, I still don't think there's enough data.

And, finally, you have cherry-picking of data, so looking for the data that supports your hypothesis, even though it may not actually be connected or make sense. And then conspiracy theories, or, really, lies, about — one example of this would be microchips and vaccines. That simply is not true. There are no microchips in our vaccines to track people.

But these are the characteristics or tactics that you see over and over and over again in this anti-vaxxer playbook.

---