How did so much false information about COVID spread?

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Apr 2 50 Comments

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115869

That's the third high quality study in a row showing that ivermectin is basically a placebo when it comes to COVID.

But for the past year there have been millions of people fooled into thinking it works, trading links on YouTube and Facebook with podcasts and all kinds of fake information. Some got prescriptions for it, some got the animal version, and really believed it would protect them.

How does that happen? How did our society become so vulnerable to trolls and misinformation?

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TOP 50 Comments
  • Facebook and Fox
    Apr 2 7
    • Amazon
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      OP
      Has it been proven though, @Intuit? Or is the "proof" also coming from the same unreliable sources?

      Usually I find the people who believed in ivermectin took a jump from the potentially reasonable position that mainstream media needs to be questioned, to the patently ridiculous position of disbelieving practically all published science in favor of pseudoscience that fails peer review.
      Apr 2
    • Amazon
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      OP
      @Wayfair exactly, and most people aren't critical enough to recognize that Rogan isn't asking the hard questions, that he brings on wackos and then throws only softball questions to them, basically enabling them rather than challenging them.
      Apr 2
  • Amazon
    shoshnebut

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    shoshnebut
    Here’s what I’ve observed: because the media lies about the “real science” and constantly moves the goalposts, they think that any source can be legit.

    Basically, my mom thinks because NO source is trustworthy (I agree) that ANY source can be trustworthy (I disagree). So if MSNBC can be misleading about something, then she can cite 4chan and it’s the same thing.

    For the record, I am not vaccinated, and I had COVID in October. I don’t wear a mask, because natural immunity is a real thing. But would I have Ivermectin? Absolutely not. It is a parasitic drug. Not antiviral. Same goes with any other weird shit boomers share on Facebook. But do I believe that I need four boosters so that these companies can profit when I already had COVID? Nope.
    Apr 2 9
    • Amazon
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      OP
      That man has a bunch of ideas he hasn't been able to get published, while people who contributed more to the vaccine, and more recently, disagree with him, and are able to get data supporting their views through peer review.

      He seems angry that he didn't get rich from something he hasn't really worked on in decades and he doesn't really have anything other than his opinion to back up his theories, which are considered wacky by most.

      Did Pfizer and Moderna *really* lose that trust? Or is that the effect of a sustained and well financed misinformation campaign? The have been the targets of non stop misinformation for two years now. In the media and social media, which you say to distrust: their work products have NOT run into any problems in studies

      When the EUA came out it was out course fair to say it had less data, and it did, and that was why it was under an EUA. We have two years of data now, and not only that, but where most vaccines would have thousands of trial subjects we have data on hundreds of millions of vaccinations. It's a lot more data then 99% of vaccine approvals at this point.

      I don't know where you got the idea vaccines take 50 years to get approved that's not the case. While 6 months was certainly fast, two years isn't.

      And that's the real point here: you did NOT get this "not long enough" trope from peer reviewed studies or any serious source: you got it from social media, blogs, podcasts, and other sources implicated in misinformation.
      Apr 2
    • MongoDB
      TcwY80

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      TcwY80
      Well we can agree to disagree. It was a good debate and I appreciate that.

      Fortunately neither of us is likely to die from covid at this point which is really the bottom line.
      Apr 2
  • New
    Dr.good

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    Dr.good
    There's a sucker born every minute. Was that a quote by Will Rogers or somebody else
    Apr 2 6
    • Wayfair / Eng
      astroboii

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      astroboii
      I know it's hard but people need to talk to their PCP, town GP or hospital rather than looking at random YT videos. my grandma is practically illiterate but is smart enough to know whom to take medical advice from
      Apr 2
    • I think the quote "There is a sucker born every minute" is most closely associated with P.T. Barnum, you know of circus fame.

      I argue that the more relevant quote for why people believe false stuff is "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair

      A certain political party in the US, we all know who, has engaged in a decades long crusade to discredit experts, most often because if people understood the experts, it would hurt the profits of the major Republican donors.
      Apr 2
  • Science and politics don’t mix well
    Apr 2 1
    • Amazon
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      OP
      Yeah, but how did we get to the point where things like the efficacy of a drug or a vaccine was ever a political question? That's an empirical question, there is a true or false answer unlike to most political questions
      Apr 2
  • 👍 Good. Now remove all bans on Ivermectin use for COVID. It’s useless anyway. Let’s see if that happens. Or maybe they won’t trust studies done in third world countries because they can be easily manipulated/bought 🥱

    Btw, how’s your second booster going? https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3260288-protection-against-covid-19-infection-improves-after-fourth-vaccine-dose-but-wanes-quickly-study/
    Apr 6 5