Important report from USA State Department on the "Syncretic Disinformation Network" which includes "Dugin inspired" groups New Resistance (Nova Resistência), Fort Russ News & Center for Syncretic Studies who all publish Russian propaganda. The report says Brazilian New Resistance group has pushed Propaganda on Ukraine from its Moscow registered website from leader Raphael Machado & members like Lucas Leiroz who writes for sites including GRU linked InfoBrics https://www.state.gov/gec-special-report-exporting-pro-kremlin-disinformation-the-case-of-nova-resistencia-in-brazil/

Have seen more sharing of articles from sites like SouthFront, InfoBrics and OneWorldPress, particularly over on Twitter. A reminder that these are Russian Intelligence linked sites! InforBrics and OneWorldPRess are linked in their WhoIs data to the GRU! They put out Kremlin disinformation at the moment particularly about Ukraine! I try to track the disinformation over on Twitter - HTracker10

Russian online censor Roskomnadzor has accused Wikipedia of violating Russian law as it contains information that does not comply to Kremlin disinformation narrative on invasion of Ukraine. They insist Russian search engines now indicate Wikipedia "violates Russian law" !

Я/worldpolitics2 take a look for yourself

Some pretty interesting narratives being pushed over there...

The Russia sub allows only posts that are pro Russia. They don't even allow for discussion or debate, locking threada and polls to communicate with that. Really go look at it. Something shall be done.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

That r/DebateVaccines thread shows a graph of weekly confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million and draws invalid conclusions from it. The caption "Israel literally killin it with the Boosters" incorrectly claims that the graph proves that boosters - and by extension the vaccines in general - offer no protection and might even be dangerous themselves. The selection of countries incorrectly suggests that countries with lower vaccination rates than Israel do better. As the most upvoted comment puts it:

Just blows my mind. The poorest countries with the least measures taken are doing the best….

And it's all nonsense. At best.

1. The graph is conveniently incorrect. It suggests that Israel had ≈70 COVID-19 deaths per million people in the first week of this month. In reality, Israel had 55 deaths per million. Apparently there was some miscommunication between Israel's Pandemic Info Center and the OWID website. Here's the up-to-date graph:

   Weekly confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people

2. The key term in the graph's title is "confirmed". You can only confirm COVID-19 deaths if you test for COVID-19. Of all the countries listed in the conveniently incorrect graph, Israel has one of the highest test rates. Israel has more than double the test rate of the US e.g.:

   Total COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people

3. Israel has also a much lower rate of positive tests than most of the other countries in the conveniently incorrect graph:

   Share of total COVID-19 tests that were positive, Feb 10, 2022

   A low rate of positive tests suggests that the total number of positive cases is accurate. A high rate of positive tests suggests that the total number of positive cases is inaccurate and that more testing is necessary:

   COVID-19 Testing: Understanding the “Percent Positive”

4. Beyond this, there are a whole bunch of other factors that render a comparison like the one in the conveniently incorrect graph useless:

   • Israel was much quicker than other nations to vaccinate their entire population and they started earlier. That means waning immunity from the first two doses is a much bigger issue in Israel than in other countries.
   • The omicron variant arrived in Israel much earlier than in the US e.g. That means the two countries are at different stages of the omicron wave.
   • Israel is also a very densely populated country - much more so than the US e.g. As a result, the virus has spread significantly faster in Israel.
   • And so on.

5. Last, but by no means least, all of the above is completely irrelevant. Because none of the above says anything about the effectiveness of the vaccines. The effectiveness of the vaccines can only be assessed by comparing death and hospitalization rates within the same country. The relevant data from Israel clearly shows that the vaccines offer a significant amount of protection - even against omicron:

   • 14% of Israeli Adults Are Unvaxxed. They Account for 100% of Patients
   • Unvaccinated vs. Boostered: What the COVID Death Toll From Israel Reveals

   Israel isn't special in that regard. The vaccine effectiveness statistics from Israel are identical with those from any other country. The fact remains that the vaccines are safe and effective - even against omicron - regardless of whether you live in Israel or elsewhere. The entire argument by r/DebateVaccines is utter nonsense. Even if their graph were correct, it wouldn't prove what they're trying to prove with it.

Thanks to u/SacreBleuMe, u/archi1407, u/Statman12, u/hucifer and u/zeno0771 from r/DebunkThis who helped me write this post!

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

This is the featured GETTR post by Melissa Tate (who also believes Trump's Big Lie that he "won" the 2020 presidential election):

Trump offered black people the $500 Billion Platinum Plan to create 40 Black Wall Streets in 40 cities to bring entrepreneurship & economic empowerment to black communities.

Joe Biden's plan is to buy $30 million worth of crack pipes to promote "racial equity" in black communities. This is real.. not a joke.

Trump's "Platinum Plan" certainly promised a lot to Black Americans. It was nothing but a list of promises however. He didn't make progress towards a single of the stated goals during his four years in office. He had all the time in world. He did nothing. Trump's "Platinum Plan" didn't make an appearance until he realized Black Americans wouldn't vote for him in 2020.

He boasted for four years that he created more jobs for Black Americans than any president before him, to be sure. But that was a lie. Trump inherited a strong employment market from Obama and managed not to muck it up - until the pandemic. That's not much of an accomplishment.

Trump lied a lot. About pretty much everything. And Trump promised a lot. Trump made a lot of empty promises before the 2016 election. He promised to give all Americans healthcare. He promised to cut the taxes of average Americans. He promised everyone could get a COVID-19 test. He promised to eliminate the federal deficit. And so on. Trump is the last person who should be trusted to follow through on promises.

Comparing Trump's promises to an actual policy by the Biden administration is highly disingenuous. But is what r/conspiracy and r/WalkAway are saying about Biden buying crack pipes for Black people even true? No, it is not:

The HHS program was designed to provide tools to minimize drug use risk, including money for testing equipment for sexually transmitted diseases, overdose reversal medication, and medication lock boxes. But the grant program would allow the distribution of "safe smoking kits," and that phrase made the grant program go viral. Smoking kits typically contain disinfectant wipes, rubber mouthpieces to prevent burns and cuts, and brass screens to filter out harmful contaminants.

[HHS Spokesperson Jorge] Silva said [...] that "unsafe smoking practices can lead to open sores, burns and cuts on the lips, and can increase the risk of infection among people who smoke drugs. Safe smoking kits have been identified to reduce the spread of disease," the response said.

HHS’s response continued, "Harm reduction programs that use federal funding must adhere to federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and other requirements related to such programs or services. (The agency) does not specify the kits’ elements — only the parameters."

[...]

"Safe smoking kits/supplies" is one of 12 categories of items and services that would be permissible under the grant, along with infectious disease testing kits, medication lock boxes and disposal kits, overdose reversal medication, condoms, fentanyl test strips, syringes, vaccinations, and first aid supplies.

Suggestions that the government is "spending $30 million on crack pipes" are wrong even beyond the question of whether the grants involve the distribution of crack pipes. That’s because $30 million is roughly the amount of all the possible grants collectively, and smoking kits would account for a small fraction of that.

The claim that Biden plans to buy crack pipes for $30 million isn't just a lie though. Baked into the lie is the premise that only Black people use crack cocaine. That's untrue as well. The majority of crack users are white:

Crack was once seen as an inner city, urban and minority problem. However the tables are swiftly turning. CJPF explains: “Young white people are nine times more likely to try crack cocaine than young black people.”

These posts in r/conspiracy and r/WalkAway are not just disinformation. They're racist disinformation. As far as r/WalkAway is concerned, that's par for the course. That sub has long ago ceased to be merely a disinformation sub. r/WalkAway is also a hate sub. The thread's flair "Dropping Redpills" speaks for itself.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

Text of the meme/tweet shown in r/Conservative:

Remember when we said that Pennsylvania Democrats cheated in the 2020 election by instituting widespread mail-in voting, which the state constitution prohibited, and then the Democrats called us idiots and insurrectionists?

Turns out we were right.

Pennsylvania Court Says State's Mail Voting Law Is Unconstitutional

The fact that there were more mail-in ballots than usual in Pennsylvania does not prove fraud. It has an obvious explanation: The pandemic made in-person voting inadvisable.

The fact that more Democrats than Republicans used mail-in voting does not prove fraud. It, too, has an obvious explanation: Democratic voters took (and still do take) the pandemic more seriously than Republicans.

And the fact that counting took longer than in previous elections does not prove fraud either. The obvious explanation being that there were more mail-in ballots than usual and that Pennsylvania law prohibits counting mail-in ballots before election day.

It's certainly true that Trump appeared to have a lead in Pennsylvania on election night. But it's also true that Biden won the state once all votes were counted. Those are the facts. All of Trump's legal challenges against the election in general and in Pennsylvania in particular failed miserably. Because Trump had no evidence of fraud whatsoever. His vague accusations amounted to nothing. Only evidence of election fraud proves election fraud. Trump had no such thing. r/Conservative has no such thing. The facts haven't changed. Trump's lies are still lies and r/Conservative is still lying.

As Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, said in dismissing one of Trump's challenges: "Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."

The changes to the Pennsylvania election laws in 2020 were bipartisan. Act 77 was fully supported by the Republicans. Until it turned out that Democratic voters benefitted as well. It was not until after the election, not until after Trump had lost Pennsylvania, that the Republicans changed their opinion on Act 77. What they supported before the election, they now called unconstitutional. And so they introduced various legal challenges against a law they themselves had voted for. Most of which already failed.

The Republicans made no effort to explain how Act 77 is bad for democracy. They didn't even try to explain how Act 77 does a disservice to the voters of Pennsylvania. Their entire argument consists of legal technicalities. Democracy be damned. The voters be damned.

The success of this one particular challenge is a stage win at best. The challenge will move to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court where it is expected to fail. Until then, Act 77 remains in place. But it wouldn't even matter if the challenge were to ultimately succeed. Because it still wouldn't prove election fraud. Because only evidence of election fraud proves election fraud.

We can safely assume that r/Conservative will stay silent if or when the challenge to Act 77 ultimately fails. Because r/Conservative isn't interested in facts. r/Conservative wants to keep Trump's Big Lie alive.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

The meme is ostensibly about Joe Walsh. It compares two tweets of his - one from 2018 and one from two weeks ago. The "President" in the first one is Donald Trump. The "President" in the second one is Joe Biden. Both presidents called a journalist "son of a bitch". In contrasting the tweets, r/TheTrumpZone suggests that Walsh is a hypocrite. But more importantly, r/TheTrumpZone wants you to believe that Biden and Trump are the same. This an attempt to whitewash Trump.

In case you missed it: During a recent White House press conference, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy trolled President Joe Biden with the question "Do you think inflation is a political liability?" Unfortunately, Biden took the bait. He called Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch". Doocy got exactly what he wanted: the opportunity to feign indignation and play the victim.

Is it disappointing that Biden was so easily baited? Yes. Yes, it is. If Reddit has taught us anything, it's to never give the trolls what they want. They want to provoke you into offending them so they can report you for incivility. They want you to provide them with the ammunition they can shoot you down with. In this case, sadly, it worked. Fox News - and all of "conservative" Reddit - cried bloody murder for over a week.

But compare this one incident to the innumerable incidents under Trump! Trump repeatedly called the media "enemy of the people". He insulted and disparaged the media for over four years. Not just one journalist and not just once. All of the media. Day after day after day. Trump constantly labelled reporting of facts he didn't like as "fake news". He systematically alienated his followers from factually accurate sources and drove them into the arms of deceitful conspiracy theorists. Attacks against the media on the scale Trump practiced amount to attacks against democracy itself.

Trump's incitement could also be described as "stochastic terrorism". The situation for journalists got so bad that verbal attacks by Trump followers became routine at Trump rallies. Several violent attacks happened as well. The infamous t-shirt slogan "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required" perfectly summarizes the climate Trump created.

And while Trump drove a wedge between his followers and the media, he lied. Over and over and over. In the beginning of his presidency, he lied once or twice per day. By the end, he lied dozens of times on a daily basis. The Washington Post tried to keep a tally of Trump's lies but eventually had to give up at around 30,000. Their fact checkers simply got overwhelmed.

Not only did Trump incessantly lie, he got away with it too. He got away with it because his followers had cut themselves off from any media that would have allowed them to fact-check his lies. He got away with it because his followers were no longer able to separate fact from fiction.

Biden's hot mic moment isn't comparable to what Trump did. Not even remotely. Claiming that Biden's anger at a troll and Trump's systematic sustained attacks against the media are alike - as r/TheTrumpZone does here - is a false equivalency.

And it is a lie. r/TheTrumpZone wants you to believe that Trump's belligerent rhetoric was acceptable, defensible and no big deal. They do so by pointing at Biden and falsely insinuating that he is just as bad. r/TheTrumpZone is trying to normalize Trump's anti-democratic transgressions.

r/TheTrumpZone lies. Again. As usual. As always. As their namesake.

r/TheTrumpZone needs to be banned. Trump was kicked off social media after all. So why are the little wannabe-trumps still allowed to lie around here?

"Clown world" (emojified in the r/TheTrumpZone thread title as 🤡🌏) is a neo-Nazi dog whistle btw.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

This is one is patently ridiculous. r/BidenIsNotMyPresident held a poll "Who won the 2020 presidential election?" and crossposted it to a bunch of other disinformation subs (and r/worldpolitics, whatever that sub is...):

Predictably, the users of r/BidenIsNotMyPresident and those other disinformation subs voted that Trump won. Now they're presenting that poll result under the title "The people have spoken" and with the flair "Shady Election".

I wish those submissions were a joke. But they're not. They're dead serious.

As if the disinformed opinions of disinformation sub users meant anything. As if the fact that Biden won were subjective and could be voted upon by a group of self-selected liars. As if reality could be bullied into submission. As if Trump had won the election. As if his lies were true.

To quote from Hanna Arendt's Origin's of Totalitarianism:

Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion, fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.

This is the same kind of arrogance you can see in all of the posts about the "Freedom Convoy" in Canada. "Conservative" Reddit seems to believe that because the "Freedom Convoy" makes a lot of noise, it "proves" something. As if the usefulness of vaccines could be disproved by protests. As if gathering a bunch of trucks were a method to refute science. As if what they call "the will of the people" were superior to scientific experts. As if loud and obnoxious stupidity were any less stupid.

From Umberto Eco's fourteen general properties of fascist ideology:

13. "Selective Populism" – The People, conceived monolithically, have a Common Will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the Leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the Voice of the People.")

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

This is what the meme/tweet by J.D. Vance says:

Call me crazy but if Trump ordered ground troops to protect a country that paid his family millions in illegal cash, I bet the media would be covering it differently.

And this is what the stickied comment by the original submitter (who also happens to be a mod of r/WalkAway) says:

Title: Here's Joe Biden bragging about getting Ukranian prosecutor fired, after they started investigating Hunter Biden.

I suggest you report both the submission and the stickied comment as disinformation.

This lie by r/WalkAway is another throwback to the 2020 presidential election. r/WalkAway and other "conservative" disinformation subs keep trying to renegotiate and reframe 2020. And r/WalkAway sides with Russia against the US again. For some reason.

One of the Right's favorite accusations in 2020 was that Biden conspired with Ukraine against the US. This disinformation campaign against Biden was concocted by Russia (with some assistance from Trump allies like Giuliani). Undeterred by the fact that their "ally" was a hostile foreign power with a clear intent to conquer Ukraine, "conservatives" went so far as to have a Republican-led Senate committee investigate those accusations. That, predictably, ended nowhere. The Senators found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden. They did however, to their credit, confirm that Russia was the source of the disinformation.

(Reminder: Trump refused to let these debunked accusations go even after his Republican colleagues had brushed them aside. He attempted to blackmail the Ukrainian President Zelensky into announcing an investigation of Joe Biden. Which backfired royally. Resulting in Trump's impeachment.)

And now, as Russia is ramping up military aggression against Ukraine yet again, r/WalkAway pushes long-debunked Russian propaganda from 2020.

The lie r/WalkAway tries to sell here is that Ukraine bribed Joe Biden into taking their side against Russia. What r/WalkAway conveniently omits is that the Ukrainian government gave neither Joe nor Hunter Biden anything of value. Hunter Biden worked for Burisma, a private Ukrainian company, for a time and received financial compensation for his work. That hardly qualifies as a bribe from a state actor. None of those payments were "illegal cash". None of them found their way into Joe Biden's hands.

It's certainly true that Burisma was nominally under investigation while Hunter Biden worked there, it's categorically untrue however that Hunter Biden was under investigation himself. The alleged crimes happened long before Hunter Biden was hired by Burisma. The real target of the investigation was the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

It's also true that Joe Biden demanded the removal of Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General who supposedly was investigating Burisma. But r/WalkAway conveniently ignores that the investigation was resting at the time. It did not resume until after Shokin left office. In hindsight, it certainly seems the investigation resumed because Shokin was removed.

Shokin (like Zlochevsky) was a holdover from the regime of former Ukrainian dictator Yanukovych. And Shokin (like Zlochevsky) was corrupt. That is the reason why Joe Biden demanded his removal. Giving Ukraine financial aid to fight corruption while a corrupt Prosecutor General was in charge would have been foolish.

Demanding Shokin's removal wasn't just Joe Biden's idea either. It was the official policy of the Obama administration and fully backed by the at-the-time GOP-controlled House and Senate. Demanding Shokin's removal was also not just US policy. The IMF and the EU wanted Shokin gone as well. Nobody wanted Shokin to remain in office - other than Russia and fellow henchmen of the former Ukrainian dictator, of course.

Nobody criticized Biden for his actions in Ukraine at the time. The accusations didn't start until the 2020 presidential election when Russia and Trump needed ammunition against Biden. The timing was curious then. The timing is curious now.

Yesterday I posted about a disinformation thread in r/TheTrumpZone which pushes the lie that Trump won the 2020 election:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DisinformationWatch/comments/sbwre2/raskthe_donald_and_rthetrumpzone_lie_about_the/

Not only did I write about that disinformation, I also reported it, of course. As a consequence, I was myself reported for "abusing the report button". And what did Reddit do? They took the side of the disinformation superspreaders and gave me a "Warning for Report Abuse".

This is unacceptable.

Reddit must start taking action against disinformation. And Reddit must stop shielding disinformation spreaders from the consequences of their lies. If you too were reported for "abusing the report button", I strongly suggest you send a protest message to Reddit! Even if you merely received a warning.

This is the message I sent:

You warned me that I committed report abuse. I did not. The thread that I reported as disinformation is indeed disinformation. Here's a fact check which debunks that specific lie by r/TheTrumpZone:

https://factcheck.afp.com/wisconsin-vote-surge-was-not-fraud

Trump didn't win the 2020 presidential election. Biden did. Not only did Biden win, he won fair and square. You know that as well as I do. But here is r/TheTrumpZone lying again that Trump won and Biden cheated. And you are letting them get away with it. Again. And they will continue to push this lie. Again and again. As they have done every day since the 2020 election. Because you are letting them. Because instead of taking action against that disinformation, you are punishing people who call that disinformation out. Again.

Reddit continues to actively protect and promote disinformation.

It is high time for you to take action against the endless torrent of lies from r/TheTrumpZone and other disinformation subs. And it is high time for you to prevent the disinformation superspreaders from abusing Reddit's report system to silence legitimate criticism.

Maybe it's time to contact the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6h Attack on the United States Capitol directly. Attempting to help Reddit clean up their act appears to be a waste of time.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

The shown cartoon lies that Trump cleared the bar of minimum electoral votes with ease while votes for Biden where fraudulently added at some point.

The original source of this lie is The Gateway Pundit. That site is so vile and deceitful that it has the dubious honor of being one of the very few sites that it is globally blacklisted on Reddit. Any comment or submission that links to it will be automatically removed. I recommend against testing that btw!

And the original lie is old. It dates back to November 4, 2020. Since then it has been thoroughly debunked by every fact checker on Earth. Here's a fact check from November 6, 2020:

https://factcheck.afp.com/wisconsin-vote-surge-was-not-fraud

And this lie, like all of the other lies about the 2020 election, just won't die.

They. Simply. Keep. Repeating. It. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

Repeated lies apparently sound truer over time. At least if you've got nothing but lies anyway.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

Here's the statement by habitual liar Donald Trump that was posted to all those subs:

President Biden admitted yesterday, in his own very different way, that the 2020 election may very well have been a fraud, which I know it was. I'm sure his representatives, who work so hard to make it look legit, are not happy.

By "in his own very different way" Trump means that Biden said no such thing. Biden's remarks were not about the 2020 elections, they were about the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. What Biden called into question was the legitimacy of future elections and he did so because of the concerted efforts by Trump's party to sabotage and cheat. Twisting Biden's words to mean that he, Biden, "admitted" something is not only profoundly dishonest, it's also completely nonsensical.

The facts haven't changed. Biden won the 2020 election by over 7 million votes. And despite Trump's relentless lies, Biden won the election fair and square. All of Trump's legal challenges were laughed out of court. All of the recounts Trump demanded proved that he lost. All of his lies were proven to be just that, lies. And Trump's coup attempt - let's not forget about that! - failed just as miserably.

Whether that reality pleases r/BidenIsNotMyPresident and all those other disinformation subs is irrelevant. It's still reality. No matter how many times r/BidenIsNotMyPresident and all those other disinformation subs lie otherwise.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

The sub itself is satirical and debunks flat earth. Occasionally a lost flat earther wanders in, posts some nonsense and gets utterly debunked and laughed at. Having said that, the mods are very clear that they don't give a crap about who posts what, and will not respond to reports. In their words, "we don't care".

This particular user is another cookie. The user is a flat earther and a very active pusher of antivaxx lies. He is mod of his own antivaxx sub, r/censoredreality which is an absolute cesspool. The post I am referring to here is filled with lies, so this will be a long one.

Claim 1: Moderna tried to patent SARS-COV2 genome in 2018. His source for this is a site called Newspunch.com. And he asks people to search Facebook and Twitter for more on these so-called "facts". Because everyone knows how reliable those sources are...

A 2017 BuzzFeed News report identified NewsPunch as being the second-largest source of popular fake stories spread on Facebook that year, and a June 2018 Poynter analysis identified NewsPunch as being debunked over 80 times in 2017 and 2018 by Poynter-accredited factcheckers such as Snopes, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and the Associated Press.

Source: Wikipedia article with a ton of sources

Claim 2: SARS-COV2 is theoretical and doesn't really exist. His source is a picture of the header of a research paper where they recreated a computer model of the genome. The user literally cherry-picked one word to make his claim. One. Word. Here is a pdf of the whole research paper if you're interested

Claim 3: Only 6000 people died from COVID-19 in England and Wales in the past 2 years. His source is a picture of a table, with the website ons.gov.uk on the bottom. He cherry-picks the words "COVID-19 as the ONLY cause of death on the death certificate". He goes on to say that nobody died of covid. Of course if you go to the actual site ons.gov.uk you can download the actual datasets which will show reality, not this guy's fantasy numbers.

Claim 4: Ivermectin and HCQ were "Curative" to the radio toxicity effects of 5G. WHAT?? His source is yet another picture with no source or anything, and some random sentences which don't even mention 5G.

Please report the above thread(s) to Reddit as disinformation. The more people report this disinformation, the bigger the chance that Reddit will take action. You can copy/paste the text below into the "additional information" field of Reddit's report form:

The user is a flat earther and a very active pusher of antivaxx lies. He is mod of his own antivaxx sub, r/censoredreality which is an absolute cesspool. The post I am referring to here is filled with lies.

Claim 1: Moderna tried to patent SARS-COV2 genome in 2018. His source for this is a site called Newspunch.com. And he asks people to search Facebook and Twitter for more on these so-called "facts". Because everyone knows how reliable those sources are...

A 2017 BuzzFeed News report identified NewsPunch as being the second-largest source of popular fake stories spread on Facebook that year, and a June 2018 Poynter analysis identified NewsPunch as being debunked over 80 times in 2017 and 2018 by Poynter-accredited factcheckers such as Snopes, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and the Associated Press.

Source: Wikipedia article with a ton of sources

(You can find links to the actual threads in the archives)

The archive didn't capture the actual meme for some reason, so here it is:

https://i.redd.it/qjuom64bmuc81.jpg

The meme shows a Nazi era health passport ("Gesundheitspaß") and claims "That's how it started. 'Health' was their excuse to track everyone."

The Swastika makes this document look scary. But should it really scare you? The Nazis committed horrible atrocities but they also had a country to run. Running a country includes lots of harmless bureaucracy. And this health passport is just that, harmless bureaucracy. The fact that it was branded with Nazi insignia doesn't make it any less banal.

Health passports were required for everyone who wanted to work in an industry that handled food. They were issued to everyone who applied for them but people who didn't professionally work with food didn't need one. Such health passports had to be shown as part of a job application. Restaurants, food processing plants, etc. were not allowed to hire anyone who didn't have a clean bill of health.

Health passports also didn't disappear with the Third Reich. Contemporary Germany still has health passports to this day. The German Democratic Republic had health passports too. Many countries have health passports or their local equivalent. Because they're useful. Holding food industry workers to a higher health standard than the rest of the population has obvious benefits.

The entire premise of the meme falls apart upon examination. No, the Nazis did not use health passports to track people. No, this is not how "it" started.

It's no coincidence that this meme appears in an English-speaking sub. The person who created this meme counted on the inability of an English-speaking audience to identify anything other than the Swastika. The shown document is meant to look scary. And, yes, the associations the Swastika evokes are scary indeed. But the shown document wasn't part of an evil scheme.

This meme is FUD. It is an appeal to fear. It is meant to paint vaccine mandates, mask mandates, travel restrictions and all other policy measures that are meant to contain the pandemic as evil. This is the sort of propaganda that gets people killed because it tricks them into rejecting potentially life-saving public health measures.

(You can find the links to the actual threads in the archives)

The meme labels Joe Biden as a "pedophile" and a "traitor". This is barely worth debunking. No effort to present even the flimsiest evidence for those lies is presented after all. It's little more than a low effort shitpost for low effort shitsubs.

The "evidence" that Biden is a "pedophile" consists of a few deceptive photos and videos. Like all politicians, Biden likes to be photographed with children to portray himself as a family man. Most children don't particularly enjoy the sudden attention of hundreds of adults staring at them. So take a picture of the child showing discomfort while Biden is standing next to him/her, title it with "Biden is molesting children again" and voilà: You have manufactured "evidence". The truth is that nobody has officially accused Biden of pedophilia and that there's no credible evidence of any sort. It's all just a lie. Because, of course, it is.

We can only guess why Biden is supposed to be a "traitor". Maybe it's because he supposedly "stole" the 2020 election from Trump? He didn't, of course, but that's what the disinformation spammers want you to believe. Or maybe it's because Biden supposedly received large sums of money from Xi Jinping? He didn't, of course, but that was another frequent lie during the 2020 election campaign.

This meme looks like the reminders TV advertisers use. Some time after the real TV commercial airs, maybe a few seconds later or maybe a few months later, a short summary of the commercial is shown. That reminder is not meant to praise the product but to remind the audience of the product name and the quality the advertisers want to attach to it. In this case "Biden" is the product and "pedophile" and "traitor" is what the disinformation superspreader wants you to think if you hear the word "Biden".

Disinformation memes are best understood as advertisements and best discussed as marketing. Because that's how they operate. They do not try to convince with arguments or facts. Disinformation memes try to bypass your critical thinking by appealing to your emotions. Disinformation memes are deeply irrational. And disinformation memes, like TV commercials, rely on infinite repetition to make you remember their bullshit. After all, if you've heard something a million times, it cannot be entirely wrong, can it? Yes. Yes, it can. And in this case it definitely is.

You can find a suggestion what to add to Reddit's report form below the stickied AutoModerator post.

First of all, the entire sub is just disgusting. But this specific post: The link in this post is to the well-known antivaxx site childrenshealthdefense.org which is chaired by none other than Robert F. Kennedy.

They use VAERS data to substantiate their claim "Reports of Covid vaccine injuries pass one million mark as FDA signs off on Pfizer booster for kids 12 and up"

VAERS data is highly unreliable. "I can get a COVID vaccine and my dog gets hit by a car – I can make that report and it will show up in the database," Salmon said. "It does not mean that my getting a COVID vaccine caused my dog to get hit by a car."

Fact check

This is the truth.

Please report the above thread(s) to Reddit as disinformation. The more people report this disinformation, the bigger the chance that Reddit will take action. You can copy/paste the text below into the "additional information" field of Reddit's report form:

This is just one example of the myriad of misleading posts in that sub. The mod is crossposting misinformation and conspiracy nonsense from a bunch of other subs, collecting them in his cesspool. He also has a channel on odysee.com (likely because he got booted from youtube, rightfully so) where he spreads his antivaxx conspiracy lies.

Dr. Luc Montagnier is a Nobel recipient for his discovery of the HIV virus. He has been claiming that "Vaccines are causing new covid variants".

This is not true. In fact there's been at least 3 variants before the first vaccine was distributed.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/no-vaccines-do-not-cause-new-sars-cov-2-variants

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/28/fact-check-covid-19-variants-come-mutations-not-vaccines/5205529001/

https://www.factchecker.in/fact-check/nobel-laureate-luc-montagniers-anti-vaccine-claims-wrong-unscientific-covid-19-vaccination-751214

It is not mentioned in this particular thread, but antivaxxers have also been spreading that Dr. Montagnier said "There is no hope and no possible treatment for those who have been vaccinated already. We must be prepared to incinerate the bodies."

This is FALSE, he did not say this. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/may/28/viral-image/no-french-virologist-luc-montagnier-didnt-say-covi/

Please report the above thread(s) to Reddit as disinformation. The more people report this disinformation, the bigger the chance that Reddit will take action. You can copy/paste the text below into the "additional information" field of Reddit's report form:

Claim: "It is clear that the new variants are created by antibody-mediated selection due to the vaccination," claimed Montagnier in the interview published by RAIR Foundation.

Fact: "Vaccinating during an epidemic is the most sensible thing to do, if safe and effective vaccine is available," TJ John, virologist and former professor at the Christian Medical College, Vellore told FactChecker.

This is the fourth time I'm attempting to post to this sub, I hope I've learned it properly now...