The Misinformation Pandemic: Over 300 Vaccine Myths and Counting
PLUS: Microsoft versus the misinformation machine and a Texas-sized hoax peddled by China
Welcome to NewsGuard's Reality Check, a report on how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.
Today:
A bleak milestone: NewsGuard surpasses 300 debunked vaccine narratives
Tech titans and tall tales: The false Microsoft device disabling drama
China’s tall tale: No, Texas didn’t declare war on the U.S.
And more…
Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.
1. By the Numbers: 300 Vaccine False Claims and Counting
We reached a grim milestone at NewsGuard this week …
What happened: NewsGuard analysts have now debunked more than 300 vaccine-related false narratives.
Together, these false narratives have been advanced by 4,387 websites and other news sources and social media accounts.
Here are some of NewsGuard Health Editor John Gregory’s “favorites”: Click on the description to read NewsGuard’s detailed debunks.
Fibrous blood clots reported by embalmers are proof of widespread deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines
Thirty New Zealanders died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines at same clinic
No vaccines have been tested in placebo-controlled clinical trials
Most Surprising fact: Two-thirds of all the news and information websites that NewsGuard has rated as untrustworthy since our launch in 2018 publish health care misinformation — including many sources that were spreading health care misinformation even before COVID-19.
For more information about the 300-plus false narratives, click here.
From “The Death of Truth” by NewsGuard Co-CEO Steven Brill, to be published this spring.
2. Microsoft’s Diabolical Plan to Shut Down Misinformation-Spreading Devices Is … Misinformation
By Coalter Palmer, contributing: Hilary Hersh
It sounds like a scene out of a sci-fi movie: a Big Tech company remotely disabling the computers of people who supposedly spread misinformation. A low-quality website managed to get a lot of people to believe this was happening after it misrepresented an NBC News interview with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella.
What happened: Social media users and unreliable news sites are boosting a false claim that Microsoft plans to disable the devices of customers who share “misinformation” online.
Who’s behind it: The false claim originated in an article by ThePeoplesVoice.tv (NewsGuard Trust Score: 0/100), a website that has published false claims about COVID-19 and U.S. politics, among other topics.
Citing an authentic, Jan. 30, 2024, NBC News (Trust Score: 100/100) interview with Nadella, ThePeoplesVoice.tv said that “Microsoft has announced plans to disable the computers of people who share ‘non-mainstream’ content online, in an attempt to combat so-called ‘misinformation’ in the run-up to the 2024 election.”
Actually: While Nadella did speak broadly in the interview about combating misinformation ahead of the 2024 election, he said nothing about disabling computers and never uttered the phrase “non-mainstream content.”
In other words, The People’s Voice totally falsified the interview.
In a Feb. 12, 2024, email, a Microsoft spokesperson told NewsGuard that “there are no plans to disable any computers for users.” ThePeoplesVoice.tv did not respond to a request for comment sent through the site’s contact form.
A closer look: In addition to The People’s Voice, the false claim was amplified on X by accounts including @DrLoupis, @RobinDelEspacio, and @Sprinter99800, as well as on Facebook, Truth Social, Reddit, and Telegram.
The bogus claim was also advanced by conservative site SurviveTheNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100), far-right conspiracy sites Planet-Today.com (Trust Score: 12.5/100), OperationDisclosureOfficial.com (Trust Score: 32.5/100), and the Russian-state-owned site en.InterAffairs.ru (Trust Score: 32.5/100).
(Disclosure: Microsoft is a licensee of NewsGuard.)
Do you work in Trust and Safety for a technology company, in brand safety for advertising or otherwise counter misinformation as part of your job? Find out about NewsGuard’s weekly Risk Briefings, a more detailed briefing for professionals. Click here.
3. The ‘Texit’ That Wasn’t: Pro-China Commentators Claim Texas Declared War on the U.S.
By Elisa Xu
What Happened: Pro-China commentators are falsely claiming that Texas has declared a “state of war” against the U.S. government.
Big picture: Why is China pushing this Texas-sized myth? The backdrop is that the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are engaged in a dispute over illegal border crossings.
China apparently sees this political dispute as a way to make the U.S. look dysfunctional and exacerbate the nation’s political polarization.
A closer look: Pro-China commentator Gansu Chen Weidong (甘肃陈卫东) said in a post on the Chinese blogging platform Sohu, in Chinese: “The U.S. state of Texas has declared a state of war, and is preparing for a bloody battle with the Biden administration … It can be said that the consequences will be unimaginable.” The post was viewed 17,000 times as of Feb. 9, 2024.
Um, no: Abbott has not declared a state of war against the U.S. government.
While Abbott’s office put out a press release highlighting the disagreement between Texas and the U.S. federal government, the statement was not in any way a declaration of war.
But the story gets more outlandish with Russian help …
Russian commentators and far right-wing American websites are also advancing the claim that Russia’s United Nations representative, Vasily Nebenzya, announced that Russia is providing Texas with weapons to support the state in its fight with the U.S. government.
In fact, Nebenzya did not make this statement, according to a spokesperson for the Russian Mission to the United Nations, Evgeny Uspenskiy, who told PolitiFact that the “information is fake.” Searches by NewsGuard did not surface any such quotes by Nebenzya.
Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.