Russia-linked PR company paying influencers to post anti-vax disinformation

[noblegiraffe]

www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/25/influencers-say-russia-linked-pr-agency-asked-them-to-disparage-pfizer-vaccine

German and French influencers with millions of followers have been approached by a London-based PR agency with Russian connections, asking them to act passionately about information being covered up that the Pfizer vaccine is responsible for 100s of deaths.

Interesting. I wonder how many people took the cash, and useful to know that there are bad faith actors actively and dishonestly trying to discourage people from taking the vaccine.

The WHO published a major report on the Russian role in online anti-vaccine propaganda. This pre-dated covid, and was described as one of the biggest threats to global health.

It's ramped up with covid.

But people don't want to believe they or their friends could have been manipulated.

No surprise!

It’s so interesting. I’m not surprised at all, but pleased people have been honest. There will be a lot more to come out on this in the next few years. There has been so much anti-vaccine sentiment online that I don’t believe for a minute it can all be organic.

That's interesting, AuntieStella. I get that they are wanting to disparage the Pfizer vaccine in order to hype the Sputnik, why would they be anti other vaccines?

I'd love to know what the Russian plan is.

Interesting published by the guardian which receives funding from Bill gates foundation! I have just seen a very balanced vaccine side effect group on Facebook get deleted . So who is controlling the narrative ? Not just the Russians

I nearly posted this story earlier on a thread today that got deleted.

I suspect that there are some of these posters on all types of forums.

Interesting published by the guardian which receives funding from Bill gates foundation!

I actually first saw it on twitter tweeted by a BBC journalist. twitter.com/charliehtweets/status/1396860850699395074?s=21

Are you trying to suggest that Russians funding anti-vax disinformation is fine if it is the Guardian who points it out? That's a bit of a weird angle don't you think?

I've seen Russian disinformation posted on MN before, when the Salisbury poisonings were being discussed. With their massive troll farms they're pretty much everywhere.

Paying known influencers with millions of followers to post your messages is different to trolls posing as genuine posters on Internet forums though.

I first saw the story through a German news site.

I didn't check if they received money from the Gates Foundation though.....

I’m being really thick here but what would the Russians have to gain from making everyone anti-vax?

The same gains they got from having Trump as president and Brexit.

So destabilising the west as this takes the heat off of how their citizens view them?

If we’re unstable then their citizens think the hand they’ve been dealt isn’t so bad after all?

BBC story from 2018 about Russian troll farms posting anti-vax stuff www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45294192

"Social media bots and Russian trolls have been spreading disinformation about vaccines on Twitter to create social discord and distribute malware, US researchers say.
Troll accounts that had attempted to influence the US election had also been tweeting about vaccines, a study says.
Many posted both pro- and anti-vaccination messages to create "false equivalency", the study found.
It examined thousands of tweets sent between 2014 and 2017.
Vaccination was being used by trolls and sophisticated bots as a "wedge issue", said Mark Dredze from Johns Hopkins University.
"By playing both sides, they erode public trust in vaccination, exposing us all to the risk of infectious diseases," he said."

@ASchuylerSister

I’m being really thick here but what would the Russians have to gain from making everyone anti-vax?

Not at all thick and actually a very interesting question. Russia's grey zone strategy is based on the idea that if I make my opponents weaker/ chaos/ divided then I make myself stronger. Check out the Sky News podcasts on the Grey Zone.

It's to destabilise others.

Not just by risking epidemic outbreak (or in this case, slowing pandemic recovery)

It is to hearten fringe groups, and to encourage anti-government thinking and foster scepticism about evidence-based policies. Softening up for future issues

'I'm not antivax, I'm just questioning' is definitely not what it seems at the moment - it's precisely what the trolls are fostering. But no-one want to believe that they are spouting the words of sophisticated spammers, that they or there friends have (probably unknowing) been exposed to.

Public health messaging in rebuttal has had to be very careful not to insult or something no accusatory of people who have fallen for this (for indeed it is, like all successful cons, plausible and seductive)

Yes there are several lines of attack on vaccines that are being repeated over and over, including on MN. Not necessarily Russians though!

It was estimated that nearly half of tweets about covid last year were from bots, including that it was a biological weapon or spread through 5G www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859814085/researchers-nearly-half-of-accounts-tweeting-about-coronavirus-are-likely-bots?t=1622190197340

@RedMarauder

I nearly posted this story earlier on a thread today that got deleted.

I suspect that there are some of these posters on all types of forums.

definitely! Sometimes they're quite obvious but obviously not all the time. It does make me wary - particularly on large forums like this - of people who seem to be posting in bad faith.

It is notable how vaccine threads are instantly piled on with negative stories.

@ASchuylerSister

I’m being really thick here but what would the Russians have to gain from making everyone anti-vax?

I read that it would make biological warfare easier in a cold-war scenario. Release something like measles or even a few infected individuals. Measles is endemic but controlled so it's difficult to trace back to a nation or an individual but with fewer people vaccinated you could spread it to a huge number of people. We have seen how quickly covid spreads with and R0 of 3ish. Measles has an R0 of 12.

Advance search is helpful with this. If you don’t think astroturfers target Mumsnet you haven’t been paying attention.

The amount of new posters/name changers on Cv board always interests me.