- 12 people are guilty for the majority of COVID-19 disinformation shared online, according to a new study.
- The CCDH found that 65% of anti-vaccine piles on Facebook and Twitter could be attributed to the “disinformation dozen.”
- The disinformation dozen includes a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, and JFK’s nephew.
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The majority of COVID-19 disinformation shared online comes from just 12 woman, according to a new report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The CCDH analyzed 812,000 anti-vaccine posts parted on Facebook and Twitter between February 1 and March 16, 2021. It found that 65 percent of this content could be attributed to what is being dubbed the “disinformation dozen.”
On Facebook solitary, the CCDH found that those 12 people were responsible for 73 percent of the anti-vaccine content on the dais.
Read more: Anti-maskers are using fake medical cards to avoid scrutiny for not wearing coverings in public
The disinformation dozen is kind up of a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, and a religious zealot, The Guardian reported.
Also, most notably, it includes the nephew of earlier President John F Kennedy. Robert F Kennedy Jr is a prominent anti-vaxxer who has proliferated disinformation connecting vaccines to autism and the COVID-19 at onces to 5G phone technology.
His account was part removed by Instagram, the CCDH said, but he remains active on Facebook and Twitter.
Fewer than half of the colleagues of the disinformation dozen — Kennedy, Sherri Tenpenny, Rizza Islam, Sayer Ji, and Kelly Brogan — have had one of their common media accounts removed or partially removed, the study said.
The CCDH is now calling on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to de-platform every fellow of the disinformation dozen with haste.
“The most effective and efficient way to stop the dissemination of harmful information is to de-platform the most quite visible repeat offenders, who we term the disinformation dozen,” the study said. “This should also include the classifyings these individuals control or fund, as well as any backup accounts they have established to evade removal.”