Super Spreaders

 12 People are Mostly Responsible

According to NPR, researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts."

"At the outset of this research, we identified a dozen individuals who appeared to be extremely influential creators of digital anti-vaccine content. These individuals were selected either because they run anti-vaccine social media accounts with large numbers of followers, because they produce high volumes of anti-vaccine content or because their growth was accelerating rapidly at the outset of our research in February. "

What's the motivation?
Greed, what else?

NPR reports, for many anti-vaccine advocates with a business on the side. They promote false claims about the dangers vaccines pose, while selling treatments, supplementals or other services. Their potential market is the roughly 20% of Americans say they do not want to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to recent polling according to NPR.

For those with something to sell, anti-vaccine misinformation serves a second important purpose.

"One of the things that antivaxxers have to do to sell their own remedies ... is to persuade people not to trust authorities they've trusted in the past." 

"By using their debunked theories to turn people away from mainstream medicine, these entrepreneurs are creating customers: "Once they've managed to hook someone, they can then sell to them for a lifetime." -npr