Pro-Putin disinformation is thriving in online anti-vax groups

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Kiera Butler
@kieraevebutler
THREAD 🧵: Today I wrote about the proliferation of Pro-Putin conspiracy theories in American anti-vax groups. https://motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/pro-putin-disinformation-on-ukraine-is-thriving-in-online-anti-vax-groups/… 1/9

motherjones.com
Pro-Putin disinformation is thriving in online anti-vax groups
All the usual themes: Secret government alliances, anti-Semitic tropes, and nefarious scientists.
8:38 AM · Mar 2, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/pro-putin-disinformation-on-ukraine-is-thriving-in-online-anti-vax-groups/

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen how conspiracy theories can overlap and collide. I’ve documented how anti-vaccine groups embraced QAnon disinformation about liberal elites conspiring to unseat Trump, and how white nationalists find willing audiences for their racist ideology in anti-mask groups. Over the last week, a new disinformation hybrid has appeared, as online anti-vaccine groups have become a hotbed of pro-Russia conspiracy theories about the conflict in Ukraine—and some of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists are actively promoting geopolitical falsehoods.

Imran Ahmed, executive director of the online extremism tracking group Center for Countering Digital Hate, has been following the convergence of the conspiracy theories, and he’s noticed they share familiar themes: alleged secret government alliances, anti-Semitic accusations, and allusions to nefarious scientists. “There are particular individuals within the anti-vaccine world who are amenable to pro-Russian propaganda,” he says, “and that would include some of the people who’ve cohered around QAnon and Trump.”

One example of this is how an old Trump-era storyline—the theory that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately engineered in a lab and released—seems to have been reconstituted in a new form: Anti-vaccine influencers claim that the United States owns a network of secret biolabs in Ukraine where dangerous infectious disease research takes place. For them, it’s just obvious that Biden is sending aid to Ukraine in order to protect those assets. This rumor has been proven to be manifestly false—but that hasn’t stopped it from circulating and gaining momentum.

Last week, Christiane Northrup, an influential holistic medicine practitioner who regularly spreads pandemic misinformation and promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory, shared with her 78,000 Telegram followers a map that supposedly showed the secret labs in Ukraine that she insists create viruses. She also shared a post from a Bulgarian news site claiming that the US government “conducted biological experiments with a potentially lethal outcome on 4,400 soldiers in Ukraine and 1,000 soldiers in Georgia.” This is not true. On Instagram, a popular meme traveling with the hashtag “#biolabs” shows a photo of Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, with the caption “I might not be a smart man, but I do know if they lied to me about Covid for 2 years, they are probably lying to me about why Russia invaded Ukraine this week.”

*snip*

[genxlib]

1. The cause/effect of this may be backwards

Instead of "anti-vaxx loons are prone to pro-Putin nonsense"

It it more likely "anti-vaxers get all of their information from the same sources"

Putin has always been behind much of the disinformation in the anti-vax community so this really just continuing Putin influence.

[blm]

2. Funny as Covid-paranoid Putin practices extreme social-distancing

in every encounter.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Proving the connection we all basically knew about...

[XacerbatedDem]

4. What a bunch of sick people.

BS has become the first and only agenda for the repug party.

[Frustratedlady]

5. So, if the US has labs in Ukraine to produce SARS Covid2, then the Russians

better watch were they are bombing.

Their conspiracy theory-making has to be a full-time job.