- Platforms including Facebook, Alphabet’s YouTube, IAC’s Vimeo and Twitter are struggling to stay ahead of the spread of the “Plandemic” conspiracy video.
- The video contains claims that defy the advice of medical experts, such as that sheltering in place harms consumers’ immune systems and that masks can make people sicker.
- Single instances of the video on Facebook and YouTube had each received more than 1 million views before being removed.
Social media networks are working to remove or stop the spread of a viral pandemic conspiracy video that contains false, misleading or unproven claims about Covid-19.
The roughly 26-minute “Plandemic Movie” video claims to be an excerpt of a larger documentary to be released this summer and contains claims about the origins of the virus and how it spreads. The video tries to argue that the coronavirus pandemic was created to make profits off vaccines. Among other claims that defy advice of medical experts, it suggests that sheltering in place harms consumers’ immune systems and that masks can make people sicker.
As of midweek, it had been viewed and shared widely across Alphabet’s YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and IAC-owned Vimeo. People were also sharing clips of the video on Twitter.
It comes as health-care professionals are confronted with a bombardment of misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization hosted a meeting with tech leaders from Google, Facebook, Twitter and other tech platforms, in part to discuss what they’re doing to prevent the mounting spread of coronavirus-related misinformation.
www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/facebook-youtube-struggling-to-remove-plandemic-conspiracy-video.html