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Anti-Vax Groups Thrive on Facebook as Nationwide Coronavirus Vaccinations Begin
One mother asked whether a snakebite kit could be used to remove the vaccine from the body
On Monday, a member of an anti-vax Facebook group with 13,000 participants shared a video by the World Doctors Alliance, a controversial group of health professionals that pushes conspiracy theories and vaccine misinformation and has falsely denied the existence of a pandemic. At one point in the video, a man identifying as a medical doctor and homeopath in Belgium said, “There are strong indications it could make you a controllable puppet,” referring to newly developed Covid-19 vaccines.
His false claim asserts that lipid nanoparticles in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine contain tiny robots that “might possibly change your DNA.” This discredited conspiracy theory has been floating around Facebook since November and is one of many hoaxes propagated by members of the private Facebook group, which was created in 2016 and describes itself as “opposed to deadly vaccinations.” It and other Facebook groups OneZero identified have been incubating dangerous medical misinformation for years and continue to promote anti-vax beliefs on the platform as the United States begins its monumental Covid-19 vaccination rollout.
OneZero easily located several blatantly anti-vax groups on Facebook this week, the largest of which has roughly 50,000 members. In addition to calling themselves “Anti vaccine” and “Vaccines exposed,” these groups also include ones dedicated to alleged vaccine injuries and the “parent’s choice” movement, which supports the notion that parents should be able to refuse vaccines for their children. Anti-vax ideology has also infiltrated other spaces on the platform, such as wellness and birthing groups, making it an insidiously difficult topic to moderate, Rolling Stone recently reported.
His false claim asserts that lipid nanoparticles in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine contain tiny robots that “might possibly change your DNA.”
Facebook has struggled to eradicate vaccine misinformation for years. On December 3, the platform announced that it “will start…
