This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors. The conspiracy theory video “Plandemic” recently went viral. Despite being taken down by YouTube and Facebook, it continues to get uploaded…
When filmmaker Mikki Willis uploaded a 26-minute video called “Plandemic” to the internet on May 4, he knew it was likely to cause a stir. But Willis didn’t bank on becoming the poster boy for coronavirus disinformation. In his mind, he was just a dad in Ojai making low-budget inspirational movies out of his house.The…
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the big social platforms have generally been quicker than usual to intervene in the spread of misinformation. We’ve seen Facebook, Google, and Twitter add various labels, warnings, and links to high-quality news sources and public health organizations. And for the most part, the dumbest theories about the novel coronavirus have…
Wearing a face mask does not activate a secret, vaccine-delivered form of the coronavirus in your system, regardless of what one disgraced scientist says on social media. And no, there is no evidence that Bill Gates is orchestrating it all to make himself even richer.Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube and Twitter are taking steps to slow the…
U.S.|Grand Juror in Breonna Taylor Case Says Deliberations Were MisrepresentedThe Kentucky attorney general’s office said it would release the panel’s recordings after a grand juror contended in a court filing that its discussions were inaccurately characterized.Breonna Taylor's family and the lawyer Ben Crump, right, said the charges a Kentucky grand jury agreed upon in the…
(John Finney Photography/Moment/Getty Images) An abnormally bad season of weather may have had a significant impact on the death toll from both World War I and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, according to new research, with many more lives being lost due to torrential rain and plummeting temperatures. Through a detailed analysis of an ice…