Anti-vaccination groups target local media after social media crackdowns

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With online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube cracking down on misinformation around Covid-19 vaccines, some anti-vaccination activists are pivoting to sparsely-attended real-world events and looking to local news outlets to amplify their message and give them a chance to raise money through donations. 

One young girl held up a sign with a message long since discredited by medical experts: "Vaccines can cause injury and death." A woman interviewed for the segment falsely claimed the vaccine’s ingredients were unknown and that its makers “skipped over” steps in its trial. 

The station's website also featured the segment, adding a directive to readers to find out more about the “known and unknown risks of the vaccine,” and a single link that took users to an error page.

The station had provided the kind of platform that public health professionals and misinformation experts dread.

“This is the problem of information laundering,” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University, who studies media manipulation. “If you make a harmful position sound reasonable, then more people who would otherwise not be inclined to believe it, might be willing to look at it as an issue with two sides.”