A viral video pushing misleading claims about coronavirus vaccines and masks has earned at least 30 million views from uploads directly on mainstream social media platforms. In addition to this extensive view count, the video has also seemingly received millions of Facebook engagements despite these platforms’ rules against coronavirus misinformation.
Previously, Facebook claimed that it would remove content from its platform that pushes false claims about vaccines. YouTube has said it prohibits content “about COVID-19 that poses a serious risk of egregious harm” or “contradicts local health authorities’ or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19.” TikTok has said it prohibits “misinformation related to COVID-19, vaccines, and anti-vaccine disinformation,” and Twitter has said it prohibits “false or misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm.” Despite those rules, the new video promoting lies about the pandemic and vaccines has already spread extensively on these platforms in just a few days.
The viral video features a man named Dan Stock -- who has said he was at the United States Capitol building during the January 6 insurrection -- speaking in front of an Indiana city’s school board, where he makes multiple false claims. Calling himself a “functional family medicine physician,” Stock falsely suggested that coronavirus vaccines were not effective, saying, “Why is a vaccine that is supposedly so effective having a breakout in the middle of the summer when respiratory viral syndromes don’t do that?” He also falsely claimed, “People who have recovered from COVID-19 infection actually get no benefit from vaccination at all,” and inaccurately alleged that masks do not work, saying that “coronavirus and all other respiratory viruses ... are spread by aerosol particles, which are small enough to go through every mask.” And rather than vaccines, Stock suggested people use the drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19 -- which the FDA has specifically advised against.
A review by Media Matters found that the video has earned tens of millions of views from direct uploads on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok combined.
On Instagram, uploads of the video have earned more than 4.6 million combined views. One upload, from right-wing host Sebastian Gorka, has received more than 3.5 million views alone. (In fact, Gorka’s uploads of the clip on Instagram and Twitter appear to have contributed to nearly 30% of the known views of native uploads on mainstream social media platforms.) Another Instagram upload has nearly half a million views alone. And “Disinformation Dozen” member Sherri Tenpenny, who is ban evading on the platform, got thousands of views for her upload of the video.
