- An anti-vax social media campaign targets the family of a six-year-old girl who died suddenly.
- A photo of a child posted on Twitter who “died suddenly” accused her parents of vaccinating her.
- #DiedSuddenly is the latest iteration of an online conspiracy to spread disinformation about vaccines.
After the sudden death of a young girl in Ohio who had long-standing health problems, online conspiracy theorists A COVID-19 vaccine took the opportunity to blame her death.
Just hours after the funeral of 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver, who died in January, strangers quickly reached out to grieving families online to advance the anti-vaccination agenda. One of her Facebook users messaged the child’s mother. according to AP, calling her a “murderer.”
Anastasia’s obituary says the kindergartener died suddenly on January 25 at Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio. Said.
Her autopsy results have not yet been released, but doctors have “provided no information other than that her chronic condition was the cause,” said Anastasia’s mother, Jessica Day Weaver. told AP.
Still, the “sudden death” Twitter page, and more broadly the anti-vaccine movement, took advantage and exploited the girl’s death after the account posted a photo of Anastasia on Twitter with a syringe emoji. A sort of “warning” against the COVID vaccine.
“Her mother was a nurse and heavily promoted the vaccine on Facebook.” Saidfalsely indicates that her mother and the vaccine were somehow responsible for her death.
The hashtag “died suddenly” centers around a video of the same name that describes itself as “a documentary film about a generation.”
Produced at the end of last year by Far-right online commentator Stew Petersfilm misrepresents tales of health crises and frames them as vaccine-related deaths. the idea that the house has It has been exposed as false information many times.
Anastasia and her family are just one of the latest targets of a “suddenly dead” Twitter account that began posting in October 2022 and has nearly 300,000 followers. Other of her Twitter accounts are also pushing this line, scouting for death stories.
The anti-vaccine movement Exploit medical emergencies and deaths Many other children, teenagers and famous celebrities Buffalo Bills’ Dumar Hamlin After cardiac arrest in the field—”Proof” their anti-vaccine theory.
Some of the people whose lives the film used for anti-vaccine propaganda are: Matt Shuham reported on HuffPostfighting to get their story back.
Traffic to the #DiedSuddenly hashtag has increased 740% on Twitter over the last two months, according to an analysis conducted for the Associated Press and a search on Google. sudden rise A video has been published.Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green supportive tweets A few days after the video came out.
The film “premiered” on the Rumble site, a popular video-sharing site within the alt-right community, but the full video is also available at: twitter When Sites Are Billionaires After Removing COVID-Misinformation Labels Elon Musk took over the platform, according to to Atlantic.
“Twitter under Elon Musk is sending a signal to the conspiracy theorist community that the doors to Twitter may be opening again,” said Jin Zheng, a researcher of Twitter and conspiracy theories.