What’s Up Last Week?
In this Weekly, IORG presents 13 suspicious or false narratives telling people “don’t get vaccinated”. Stay alert.
Listed below are suspicious narratives on “don’t get vaccinated” and some have been proven false. Content of these narratives might cause negative impact towards personal and public health. Please proceed with extra caution.
Suspicious narrative | Suspicious conclusion | Basis | Emotional trigger | Fact-checking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Vaccines will cause cytokine storm and modify genes | 😡 Worse if vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Dr. Cahill” |
| ❌ False TFC-1094 ❌ False TWCDC |
2. Vaccines are even more poisonous than the virus | 😡 Worse if vaccinated | Appeal to authority: (some) “doctors” |
| ❌ False TFC-1102 |
3. News media did not report on the strange symptoms after vaccination | 😡 Worse if vaccinated | Cite unverified information |
| None |
4. Vaccines contain the top substance causing cancer: SM-102 | 😡 Worse if vaccinated | Cite unverified information |
| None |
5. Average lifespan reduced to 2 or 3 years after vaccination | 😡 Worse if vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “former chief scientist at pFizer Mike Yeadon”, “renowned immunology expert”, “20 years of deep understanding” |
| ❌ False TFC-1091 |
6. AZ vaccines might cause cancer | 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: Nan-Chi Chang (張南驥), retired Prof. at Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, (formerly) National Yangming University |
| ❌ “Vaccines will cause cancer” is false TFC-1106 |
7. Herd immunity already exists, vaccination will cause immune system to attack and serious damage | 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Renowned German scientist Sucharit Bhakdi”, retired Thai-German microbiologist |
| None |
8. The rich and powerful fabricate fake pandemic and promote poisonous vaccines to kill Earth’s population | 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Doctor Vernon Coleman” |
| None |
9. mRNA vaccines might cause large-scale population death | 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Dr. Bhakdi” | None | None |
10. Doctors and nurses tell the truth: pharma and biotech companies kill for profit | 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Doctors and nurses” | None | None |
11. AZ vaccine has caused so many death and the government is still recommending it | 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “former doctor at the infectious disease division of National Taiwan University Hospital” |
| None |
12. Truth: Medicine exists as cure to the coronavirus, no need to get vaccinated | 👎🏼 No need to get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Dr. Peter McCullough”, “testifying before the U.S. Congress” | None | None |
13. Cure rate by traditional Chinese medicine is near 100%, no need to get vaccinated | 👎🏼 No need to get vaccinated | Appeal to authority: “Treatise on Cold Damage Diseases” (傷寒論), a traditional Chinese medicine treatise compiled sometime before 220 AD | None | None |
On July 7th, COVID-19 death toll reached 4 million worldwide. UN Secretary-General X-7ZGI-54LA said that in order to control the pandemic, designing a “global vaccination plan” is urgent. WHO Director-General X-7ZHH-XVRO also mentioned in the 138th meeting of the International Olympic Committee that “[...] our common goal must be to vaccinate 70% of the population of every country by the middle of next year” to end the pandemic and reboot the global economy.
Last week, “vaccination registration” was again the most popular topic among Facebook Madarin pages and Taiwanese news media outlets. At the same time, as many as 13 suspicious narratives were found, telling people explicitly or implicitly that “don’t get vaccinated” in Taiwan’s information space. Among them, 4 have been proven false. According to IORG’s database, between July 12th and 18th, there are at least 4,500 LINE messages containing the phrase “vaccine” (疫苗). The 13 suspicious narratives were found in at least 32 messages from 14 groups. IORG has categorized these narratives into 3 categories based on their “discouragement strength”: 😡 Worse if vaccinated, 🤢 Don’t get vaccinated, and 👎🏼 No need to get vaccinated.
IORG has also found combinations of different suspicious narratives as a single message. This could make the message more compelling. Compared to the conspiracy theory “vaccines are biochemical weapons” found in the 3rd Weekly, these 13 suspicious narratives are more detailed and could be more convincing.
There are 2 prominent features among these 13 narratives.
First, and found in almost all of them, “appeal to authority.” Among the 13, only 2 narratives cite unverified information as their source, and the other 11 all refer to the statements made by authorities such as doctors, immunologists, and medical personnels. Having the “endorsement” of an authoritative figure can make the reader more compelled to trust and believe the content, despite possible information manipulation including fabrication of content, improper use of causality, etc. Another way to enhance the credibility of these narratives is to attach videos. 8 of these 13 suspicious narratives have videos or links to videos attached to them. 5 use videos hosted on a video streaming website “Rumble”.
About “appeal to authority”
“Appeal to authority” isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless the “authority” to which a message refers is not real or a pertinent expert in the field, or that the expert’s statements were false or distorted. In these cases, it is “improper appeal to authority”, a type of inference process manipulation.
About “Rumble”
Rumble is a Canadian video sharing website created in 2013. According to Wikipedia, Rumble’s monthly user count has experienced rapid growth since July 2020, from 1.6 million monthly users to 31.9 million by the end of the first quarter of 2021. Former U.S. President Donald Trump officially joined Rumble on June 26, 2021.
Secondly, these narratives often incite emotions such as fear and distrust. Among them, 5 contain content that might provoke fear, saying that vaccines “cause cancer”, “modify genes”, and “reduce lifespan.” Another 5 might echo readers’ existing distrust towards the news media or the government by saying that “news media didn’t report at all,” “government recommends vaccines that kill people.” There are also 4 narratives that claim they are providing “the truth”, implying that readers have been fooled and making them question the social consensus that vaccination is beneficial for public health.
Full version of this Dokidoki Alert Weekly is available in Taiwanese Mandarin. Please visit https://iorg.tw/da/7 for more…
- Topic of Last Week: Vaccination registration, BNT vaccine donation
- 13 suspicious narratives on “don’t get vaccinated”
- Suspicious Messages Editors’ Choice
- IORG Public Advisory
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