You’ll Never Guess the Source of the Top Facebook Post About the J&J Vaccine (Narrator: You’ll Guess It)

Miles Parks, reporting for NPR:

CNN. ABC News. The New York Times. Fox News.

Those are the publishers of four of the five most popular Facebook posts of articles about the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine this week. They’re ranked 2 to 5 in total interactions, according to data from the tracking tool CrowdTangle. The No. 1 posting, however, isn’t from a news organization. Or a government official. Or a public health expert.

The most popular link on Facebook about the Johnson & Johnson news was shared by a conspiracy theorist and self-described “news analyst & hip-hop artist” named An0maly who thinks the pandemic is a cover for government control.

It’s a stark example of what experts warn could be a coming deluge of false or misleading information related to the one-shot vaccine.

The problem isn’t that the FDA and CDC want to look into this possible blood clotting issue. The problem is the way they announced it. What these ass-covering bureaucrats don’t get is that the messaging — marketing, really — around these vaccines is just as important as the science. And the way they messaged this “pause” — that a one-in-a-million side effect is worth immediately hitting the panic button over — is right out of the Anti-Vax 101 textbook.

Also: fuck Facebook.

★ Thursday, 15 April 2021