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via Washington Post: Lies about the coronavirus vaccines are already spreading. How can they be stopped?

December 3, 20201 commentFrank Schaeffer

By Editorial Board

Read at Washington Post

THE CORONAVIRUS vaccines are coming, which means the coronavirus vaccine disinformation is coming, too. In fact, it is already here.

“Will New COVID Vaccine Make You Transhuman?” asks one conspiratorial article about the upcoming inoculations, feeding into a wackadoodle charge about the “reprogramming” of DNA. “This vaccine will not only ‘mark’ you like a cattle,” reads another website, “you will be injected with nano particules that will make you a Perfect antenna for the 5g frequencies.” And one similarly baseless narrative dates to the early days of the pandemic: that Bill Gates created the coronavirus itself in an effort to create mandatory vaccines.

President-elect Joe Biden has rightly put the public health crisis at the top of his priority list. This shift away from chaos and toward coherence should help to stem the uncontrolled flow of falsehoods that thrive amid uncertainty. Yet more needs to be done by a government whose leader would rather set the record straight than spend his day warping it on Twitter: The anti-vaccination movement learned its way around the Web long before covid-19 struck, and the disinformation war it has started even before these lifesaving medicines are widely available must be countered with a preemptive defense.

How? Trying to prevent propaganda discouraging vaccines altogether is futile. While social media sites should continue to take a tough line against false claims surrounding covid-19, promoting authoritative sources in their place, that strategy depends on the quality of those sources — and the administration has the highest authority out there.

Researchers have identified the importance of filling “data deficits” to give people the right answers before opportunists can give them the wrong ones. This must occur in a manner that explains without overwhelming, as complexity can push people toward the comfort of simple answers no matter their veracity. The government needs to figure out how to communicate with the country’s citizens about vaccines frequently, specifically and sensitively, tailoring its messages to existing misconceptions as well as to different types of audiences.

This conundrum must sit at the center of the incoming government’s coronavirus response — which means, first, that the task force devoted to combating the disease ought to have at least one member who is an expert in misinformation. Together with experts in medicine, this person could refine both the messages to send and how to send them. Alex Stamos of Stanford’s Internet Observatory suggestsrepurposing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Rumor Control” website, previously dedicated to election integrity, to refute the inaccuracies of the day with links to primary sources, coordinating with the Food & Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Operation Warp Speed. Refuting anticipated inaccuracies would be helpful, too, as experts can track what narratives are brewing before they take off into near-virality. Partnerships with platforms will also be key.

Whatever the method, the aim is clear: to spread counternarratives that are as compelling as the disinformation narratives already plaguing our society but that also have the benefit of being true.



How do we make our way back into love, beauty and creation? Discover my book Letter to Lucy: A Manifesto of Creative Redemption—In the Age of Trump, Fascism and Lies, a multi-touch book about art, love and parenting, from the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the prophetic music of Green Day and everything in between. Read the first chapter for free on your kindle fire or iOS device. Available now on Apple Books and Amazon Kindle Fire.
 

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Caught between the beauty of his grandchildren and grief over a friend’s death, Frank Schaeffer finds himself simultaneously believing and not believing in God—an atheist who prays. Schaeffer wrestles with faith and disbelief, sharing his innermost thoughts with a lyricism that only great writers of literary nonfiction achieve. Schaeffer writes as an imperfect son, husband and grandfather whose love for his family, art and life trumps the ugly theologies of an angry God and the atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe. Schaeffer writes that only when we abandon our hunt for certainty do we become free to create beauty, give love and find peace. Available now at Amazon.
 

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In 1998, Frank Schaeffer was a bohemian novelist living in “Volvo driving, higher-education worshipping” Massachusetts with two children graduated from top universities. Then his youngest child, straight out of high school, joined the United States Marine Corps. Written in alternating voices by eighteen-year-old John and his father, Frank, Keeping Faith takes readers in riveting fashion through a family’s experience of the Marine Corps: from being broken down and built back up on Parris Island (and being the parent of a child undergoing that experience), to the growth of both father and son and their separate reevaluations of what it means to serve. Available now at Amazon.

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Frank Schaeffer
Frank Schaeffer
Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and painter. Click here to buy Frank's Multi-Touch book, "Letter to Lucy: A Manifesto of Creative Redemption—In the Age of Trump, Fascism and Lies" on iBooks.
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1 comment. Leave new

Bruce Kopetz
December 5, 2020 8:07 pm

I commend you for not becoming completely apoplectic during Barr’s Theater Of The Absurd speech at Notre Dame. I don’t possess the stamina to watch Barr’s painful, overly-long tirade in its entirety. The self-control you displayed throughout your commentary was impressive. Thanks for producing this, Frank !

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