Anti-vaxxers push crazy coronavirus conspiracy on social media

The coronavirus outbreak is being used to spread conspiracy theories. Photo / Getty Images

Anti-vaccine activists have seized on debunked conspiracy theories to spread misinformation about the source of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, sharing false claims to suggest the disease was engineered in order to boost vaccine sales.

Storyful has identified thousands of social media posts propagating various conspiracy theories about the virus in recent days, including hundreds shared by social media accounts from users claiming to be in Australia.

Many of the posts being shared falsely connect the disease outbreak to a 2015 patent for an entirely different disease in the coronavirus family.

#coronavirus:

Interesting food for thought here:
There was a patent for the coronavirus that was filed in 2015 & granted in 2018. This is man made. https://t.co/InwcVVoCZR

— Indo-Pacific News (@IndoPac_Info) January 23, 2020

One of those sharing posts about claims the coronavirus was "man-made" and tied to the five-year-old patent was the leader of the Tasmanian Greens, Cassy O'Connor, who last week retweeted three posts that made the same suggestion.

However, she told news.com.au she didn't endorse the tweets and had retweeted them alongside information from respected medical professionals detailing the available evidence on the origins and nature of the virus.

"I retweet stories and news information quite regularly, as my Twitter feed demonstrates. It doesn't mean I endorse the content," she said. "I made sure to retweet the qualifiers to the original tweet. I always question information that comes from a single source."

Misinformation had been shared in a series of tweets from prominent US conspiracy theorist Jordan Sather, who suggested the virus had been released because "the Cabal (was) desperate for money" and it was timed to coincide with US President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.

The new fad disease called the “coronavirus” is sweeping headlines.

Funny enough, there was a patent for the coronavirus was filed in 2015 and granted in 2018.https://t.co/qqKRSptDgf

— Jordan Sather (@Jordan_Sather_) January 22, 2020

False claims about the same patent were pushed out to followers of Australian anti-vaccine group the AVN. Its founder, Meryl Dorey, said in a recent video blog: "The virus was patented in 2015, why in the world would someone be patenting a virus … maybe so they can make a vaccine and profit from it."

The AVN, now known as the Australian Vaccination Risks Network, was stripped of its charity status in 2014 over concerns it was harming children's health.

Misinformation about the origins of the deadly coronavirus strain has also been shared to dozens of Australian and New Zealand Facebook pages and groups.

One post, shared on January 22 from an account that frequently shares anti-vaccine content, said the patent for the virus was approved in 2015, adding: "Batches must be up to sale stage, quick, we must have an outbreak that threatens ENTIRE populations. Imminent plague about to hit....get your Live attenuated vaccine now!"

The Facebook post had been shared more than 80 times and remained on the social networking site a week later, although it was followed by an article from fact-checkers that identified the claims included in the post as inaccurate.

Another post connected the virus to the use of fear around disease epidemics in order to "get society vaccinated", while one went further, using the 2015 patent to push a baseless claim that nurses in Australian hospitals are planning to arm themselves.

In response to the misinformation swirling around the coronavirus epidemic, the major social media networks have attempted to take action against false claims – labelling some posts false and lowering the ranking of others in users' feeds – however, the strategy has proved ineffective in stemming the flow.

Storyful identified nearly 13,000 posts across Twitter, public Facebook pages and Reddit in the three days between January 24 and 27 propagating various conspiracy theories about the virus.

These also included suggestions that it might be a bioweapon engineered by either the US or the Chinese military, or a depopulation tool.

This marked a sharp rise from January 19 and 23 when 5300 conspiracy-theory-related posts were found by Storyful across the same platforms.

The coronavirus is the first Chinese pandemic in the age of social media and is spreading against the backdrop of heightened global tensions.

Storyful also identified dozens of posts across Weibo, the Chinese messaging app, that made claims the virus was engineered by China or the US. These posts received thousands of shares and responses. Several posts highlighted that the virus would exacerbate China's already strained relationship with Hong Kong.

Other accounts have seized on misinformation surrounding coronavirus to push holistic therapies or bogus health claims, such as the disease may be cured with colloidal silver.

Colloidal silver is not approved as safe for any of the health claims made about it, according to the US National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health; however, Storyful found nearly 150 posts and videos across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit and 4chan discussing the coronavirus and colloidal silver between January 24 and January 27.

Some 4chan users also claimed that cannabis and moringa oleifera seeds were also useful in combating the virus. These claims are without any basis in science or medicine.