Coronavirus conspiracy theories continue to spread on Facebook and other social networks.
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Facebook, YouTube, and other social networks are struggling to remove a viral video that contains various conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic and highlights the challenges associated with moderating online content.
The nearly 26-minute video is part of a series of clips released before a documentary called Plandemic. The filmmakers say that “the scientific and political elite who defraud our global health system are exposed”. The video shows Judy Mikovits, a controversial former medical researcher, who repeats conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic, including the idea that wearing a mask could make you sick because it could expose you to your own “reactivated coronavirus expressions.” Mikovits’ comments contradict the advice from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that everyone should do so Wear a face cover to protect others if you are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
“The suggestion that wearing a mask could make you sick could cause immediate harm. That’s why we’re removing the video,” said a Facebook spokesman in a statement.
Mikovits, a vocal critic from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, also suggested that the virus was developed and said it was not a “natural event”. Scientists widely believe The virus jumped from animals to humansand the US intelligence community took the unusual step of saying publicly that the virus was not “artificially produced or genetically modified. “
The video contains allegations that coronavirus deaths are higher than they should be because doctors are incentivized to say that their patients died from the viruses to receive money from a national health insurance program. There is no evidence of this Case numbers are inflated.
YouTube removed videos from Google for violating its rules, although they were still on the platform late Thursday afternoon. A YouTube spokesman said the company will remove videos that contain “medically unfounded diagnostic advice for COVID-19.” According to BuzzSumo, a social media tool, Plandemic videos totaled 4.7 million views on YouTube on Monday and Tuesday.
Twitter said it blocks the hashtags #PlagueOfCorruption and #Plandemicmovie from its search and trends. Mikovits tweeted a video asking President Donald Trump to end the ban and no longer require people to wear masks, and called the facewear “dangerous.”
Twitter said the tweet did not violate its rules against harmful coronavirus misinformation, but the link to their video was marked as unsafe, which restricted its distribution. The company has also marked a link to the documentary’s website as unsafe. Nevertheless, the Plandemic video was on Twitter late Thursday afternoon.
Despite these efforts, Plandemic videos continue to appear, including on Facebook. Some Facebook users have shared the video in public groups but linked to other websites that are not as well known as YouTube or the documentary’s website.
Keeping the video away from social media has proven to be a game of content moderation for technology companies. Social networks have tried to combat misinformation by directing users to more trustworthy sources such as the CDC and the World Health Organization.
Mikki Willis, the filmmaker behind Plandemic, said in an email that he was not going to object to the video shutdowns, but added that he was “working on a strategy to circumvent the gatekeepers.”