A Handful of Deviants Manipulate the Co-Vidiots

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, just 12 individuals are responsible for spreading most of the disinformation and outright lies about Covid vaccine on social media.

"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts.

Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, but many others are holding out, these 12 influential social media users stand to have an outsize impact on the outcome.

After this story published on Thursday, Facebook said it had taken down more of the accounts run by these 12 individuals.

These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.

A famous name in the Rogues' Gallery

Take anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the "Disinformation Dozen" identified by the center, who has promoted the long discredited idea that vaccines are linked to autism. During the pandemic, he has shared baseless conspiracy theories linking 5G cellular networks to the coronavirus, and suggested, without evidence, that the death of baseball great Hank Aaron was "part of a wave of suspicious deaths" tied to vaccines.

None of that is true.

The lies these dozen deviants spread cost lives. 

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