Facebook deleted hundreds of accounts it said were part of a disinformation campaign conducted largely in Russia against Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.
The social network that Facebook has deleted 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts associated with a disinformation campaign about vaccines. The Russian reports behind the disinformation campaign targeted and used influencers on the social network to spread false claims about COVID-19 vaccines.
The network of fake accounts has in particular tried to trick platform users into believing that AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine would turn people into chimpanzees. To that end, they didn’t hesitate to share this false information in meme form in the comments of many publications, but also to use influencers to achieve their goal. The network has probably reached many people in France, as thousands of Internet users are looking for fake certificates on Google.
Who is behind this disinformation campaign?
The network would be connected to Fazze, a subsidiary of a UK-registered marketing company called AdNow, which operates outside of Russia. The accounts were mainly aimed at India and Latin America, although the United States was also targeted.to a much lesser extent“.
Attempts to attract influencers on social media in France and Germany have drawn attention to the network. Remember, a few weeks ago, several French influencers, including Scientific Youtuber Léo Grasset from the DirtyBiology channel received an email offering 2,000 euros to inform his audience with false information.
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Some influencers would even have agreed, as Facebook said many healthcare influencers shared these lies. The campaign also recently questioned the safety of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine and shared what she claimed was the leak of an AstraZeneca document urging people not to get vaccinated.
While a fourth wave is affecting France and more mainly the overseas territories, where the population is still very little vaccinated, it’s good to see Facebook acting to contain these networks that misinform Internet users. In the United States, to speed up the vaccination campaign in Washington, the government is even offering AirPods to teenagers who are vaccinated.
Source: the Facebook