AP: The super spreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://apnews.com/article/conspiracy-theories-iran-only-on-ap-media-misinformation-bfca6d5b236a29d61c4dd38702495ffe
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As the coronavirus spread across the globe, so too did speculation about its origins. Perhaps the virus escaped from a lab. Maybe it was engineered as a bioweapon.

Legitimate questions about the virus created perfect conditions for conspiracy theories. In the absence of knowledge, guesswork and propaganda flourished.

College professors with no evidence or training in virology were touted as experts. Anonymous social media users posed as high-level intelligence officials. And from China to Iran to Russia to the United States, governments amplified claims for their own motives.

The Associated Press collaborated with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab on a nine-month investigation to identify the people and organizations behind some of the most viral misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus.

Their claims were explosive. Their evidence was weak. These are the superspreaders.
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A World Heath Organization team concluded it was extremely unlikely the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, and other experts have said the virus shows no signs of genetic manipulation.

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COVID CLAIM: GreatGameIndia claims that the virus, which has now killed more than 2 million people worldwide, was first found in the lungs of a Saudi man and then sent to labs in the Netherlands and then Canada, where it was stolen by Chinese scientists. The article relies in part on speculation from Dany Shoham, a virologist and former lieutenant colonel in Israeli military intelligence.

Shoham was quoted discussing the possibility that COVID is linked to bioweapon research in a Jan. 26, 2020, article in the conservative U.S. newspaper The Washington Times. In that article, Shoham was quoted saying there was no evidence to support the idea that the virus has escaped from a lab, but GreatGameIndia did not include that context in its piece.

“We do stand by our report,” said website co-founder Shelley Kasli wrote in an email. “In fact, recently Canadians released documents which corroborated our findings with Chinese scientists... A lot of information is still classified.”

EVIDENCE? The coronavirus most likely first appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, a World Health Organization panel announced this month, saying an alternate theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab was unlikely.

America’s top scientists have likewise concluded the virus is of natural origin, citing clues in its genome and its similarity to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, who has been studying the virus since its genome was first recorded, has said it is clear that the virus was not engineered or accidentally released.

“It is something that is clearly selected in nature,” Racaniello said. “There are two examples where the sequence tells us that humans had no hand in making this virus because they would not have known to do these things.”

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COVID CLAIM: While the center has published several articles about the virus, one suggesting it originated in the U.S. caught the attention of top Chinese officials.

On March 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian retweeted an article published by the center titled: “China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US?”

“This article is very much important to each and every one of us,” he posted in English on Twitter. “Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.”

He also tweeted: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation.”

The story by Larry Romanoff, a regular author at the center, cites several debunked theories, including one that members of the U.S. military brought the virus to China during the Military World Games in fall 2019. Romanoff concludes that it has now “been proven” that the virus originated from outside of China, despite scientific consensus that it did.

EVIDENCE? The World Health Organization has concluded that the coronavirus emerged in China, where the first cases and deaths were reported. No evidence has surfaced to suggest the virus was imported into China by the U.S.

Chossudovsky and Romanoff did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment. Romanoff’s biography lists him as a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, but he is not listed among the university’s faculty. The university did not respond to an email asking about Romanoff’s employment.

Romanoff’s original article was taken down in the spring, but Zhao’s tweet remains up.

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“If you prove and declare... that the virus was bred in American laboratories, the American economy will collapse under the onslaught of billions of lawsuits by millions of AIDS carriers around the world,” Nikulin wrote on his website.

EVIDENCE? Nikulin offered no evidence to support his assertions, and there are reasons to doubt his veracity.

Former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler, for whom Nikulin claims to have worked, said he had no memory of Nikulin, and that his story sounded “sloppily fabricated, and not credible.”

No U.N. records could be found to confirm his employment.

In an exchange with the AP over Facebook, Nikulin insisted his claims and background are accurate, though he said some records from U.N. work were destroyed in an American bombing during the Iraq invasion.

When told that Butler didn’t know him, Nikulin responded “This is his opinion.”

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Attempts to reach Rubini online and through business contacts were unsuccessful.

Rubini has bristled at efforts to verify his claims. When a social media user asked: “My question to you @GregRubini is, ‘Where and what is your proof?’ Rubini responded curtly: “And my question is: why should I give it to you?”

Twitter suspended Rubini’s account in November 2020 for repeated violations of its policies.

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EVIDENCE? Barrett cited reports that the US warned its allies in November 2019 about a dangerous virus emerging from China. Barrett said that’s long before authorities in China knew about the severity of the outbreak.

Official sources have denied issuing any warning. If the U.S. did know about the virus that soon, it was likely thanks to intelligence sources within China, which may have known about the virus as early as November 2019, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

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SUPREME LEADER ALI KHAMENEI and HOSSEIN SALAMI
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WHO THEY ARE: Khamenei is the second and current Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has the final say on all matters of state, including the economy, military and health divisions.

Since being elected to office in 1981, Khamenei has maintained his skeptical view of the U.S. as Iran’s foremost enemy. The tensions between the two countries boiled over in 2018 when Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions. At the time, Khamenei remarked, “I said from the first day: Don’t trust America.”

Hossein Salami was appointed by Khamenei as commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in April 2019. He leads the country’s paramilitary force that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program and responds to threats from both inside and outside the country.

COVID CLAIM: Salami declared on March 5, 2020, that Iran was engaged in a fight against a virus that might be the product of an American biological attack. On those grounds, Salami ordered a Ground Force Biological Defense Maneuver to test the country’s ability to combat a biological attack. Beginning March 16, the Ground Force, in close collaboration with the Health Ministry, began holding nationwide biodefense drills.

Khamenei was among the first and most powerful world leaders to suggest the coronavirus could be a biological weapon created by the U.S. During his annual address on March 22 to millions of Iranians for the Persian New Year, Khamenei questioned why the U.S. would offer aid to countries like Iran if they themselves were suffering and accused of making the virus.

Khamenei went on to refuse U.S. assistance, saying “possibly (U.S.) medicine is a way to spread the virus more.” Last month, he refused to accept coronavirus vaccines manufactured in Britain and the U.S., calling them “forbidden.” The Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

EVIDENCE: There is no evidence that the U.S. created the virus or used it as a weapon to attack Iran.
 

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/14/facebook-vaccine-hesistancy-qanon/
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The research effort also discovered early evidence of significant overlap between communities that are skeptical of vaccines and those affiliated with QAnon, a sprawling set of baseless claims that has radicalized its followers and been associated with violent crimes, according to the documents.


Facebook has partnered with more than 60 health experts around the globe and routinely studies a wide variety of content to inform its policies, Lever said of the study, in an emailed statement.

“Public health experts have made it clear that tackling vaccine hesitancy is a top priority in the COVID response, which is why we’ve launched a global campaign that has already connected 2 billion people to reliable information from health experts and remove false claims about COVID and vaccines,” she said. “This ongoing work will help to inform our efforts.”

Nearly 30 percent of Americans — and half of all Republican men — say they do not intend to get one of the three federally approved vaccines, according to a March poll by PBS NewsHour, Marist and NPR. An Associated Press-NORC study from late January found that the top reasons for concern over the vaccinations were fear of side effects, distrust of vaccines, and desire to wait and possibly get doses later.

Coronavirus-related misinformation has flooded the company’s platforms, including false narratives about covid-19 being less deadly than the flu, that it is somehow associated with a population-control plot by philanthropist Bill Gates and that vaccines are associated with the antichrist. Its content decisions, potentially anticompetitive behavior and its use by extremist groups to foment violence have drawn the attention of regulators, leading to congressional hearings and major antitrust charges by the Justice Department.

Facebook, which owns WhatsApp messenger and Instagram, collects reams of data on its more than 3.3 billion users worldwide and has a broad reach onto those users’ devices. Public health experts say that puts the company in a unique position to examine attitudes toward vaccines, testing and other behaviors and push information to people.

But the company has a steep hill to climb when it comes to proving that its research efforts serve the public because of its history of misusing people’s data.
The company allowed a political research firm to exploit the profiles of tens of millions of Americans, resulting in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, and at one time manipulated people’s emotions for an internal study.

On social media, vaccine misinformation mixes with extreme faith

Since April, the social network has partnered publicly with Carnegie Mellon University researchers to conduct the Covid-19 Symptom Survey, a daily survey of Facebook users that asks people about their symptoms, testing, mental health, attitudes about masks and more recently intent to get vaccinated. A related project has used smartphone data to track if people are upholding social distancing orders and shutdowns. At least 16 million people have been surveyed, making it one of the large public health data collection efforts during the pandemic, the researchers have said.

Facebook has also banned a wide range of baseless or misleading claims about vaccines and covid — removing more than 12 million pieces of content — and connects people to authoritative information with labels on posts and with a banner atop the Facebook site, according to the company.

Facebook’s research into vaccine hesitancy will force the company to walk a fine line if it decides to further police it, since much of the content regards expressions of concern and doubt vs. outright misinformation.

With Trump gone, QAnon groups focus fury on attacking coronavirus vaccines

“Vaccine conversations are nuanced, so content can’t always be clearly divided into helpful and harmful,” wrote Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook’s head of health, in an op-ed last week in the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s hard to draw the line on posts that contain people’s personal experiences with vaccines.”

But according to the documents, Facebook worries that the content that isn’t outright breaking its rules could be problematic. “While research is very early, we’re concerned that harm from non-violating content may be substantial,” the documents said.

That risk of harm seems to be disproportionately impacting a few communities, Facebook’s engineers found.

CDC’s guidance for vaccinated people is ‘too timid’

The results from Facebook’s early research track with findings from disinformation researchers, who have pointed that a small minority of people, particularly influencers and people who post frequently or use underhanded tactics to spread their message, can have an outsize impact on the conversation and act as superspreaders of misleading information.

The researchers noted that while some small percentage of vaccine hesitant comments could be overcome when they are posted in communities with a diverse range of opinions, the concentration of such comments in small groups suggests that they are becoming echo chambers where people simply reinforce people’s preexisting ideas.


In segments that were affiliated with QAnon, the study found sentiment that was skeptical of vaccinations was widespread. “It’s possible QAnon is causally connected to vaccine hesitancy,” the documents said. In QAnon communities, skepticism of vaccines was connected to a distrust of elites and institutions.

Last year, external researchers found that QAnon groups in Facebook were influential in fueling the spread of a misinformation-filled documentary called “Plandemic” on social platforms.

The internal Facebook study found that comments that could contribute to vaccine hesitancy overlap with QAnon but also go well beyond it, into many other different types of communities. While QAnon groups appeared to be more focused on a possible distrust of authority as a reason for doubting the vaccine, other groups had different ways of expressing their doubts and worries. This finding suggests that public health experts will need to develop nuanced messages when trying to address vaccine hesitancy in the population.
 

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/05/26/vaccine-mandate-litigation-siri-glimstad-ican/
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The Americans lodging complaints against coronavirus vaccine mandates are a diverse lot — a sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina, nursing home employees in Wisconsin and students at the largest university in New Jersey.

But their resistance is woven together by a common thread: the involvement of a law firm closely tied to the anti-vaccine movement.

Attorneys from Siri & Glimstad — a New York firm that has done millions of dollars of legal work for one of the nation’s foremost anti-vaccination groups — are co-counsel in a case against the Durham County Sheriff’s Office. They’ve sent warning letters to officials in Rock County, Wis., as well as to the president of Rutgers University and other schools.

The legal salvos show that a groundswell against compulsory immunization is being coordinated, at least in part, from a law office on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan. And they offer a window into a wide-ranging and well-resourced effort to contest vaccine requirements in workplaces and other settings critical to the country’s reopening — a dispute with sweeping implications for public health, state authority and individual rights.


“The message is, ‘Maybe you should reconsider because you don’t want to end up in court,’ ” said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. “I think that works.”

Most employers shy away from mandating coronavirus vaccines

The Informed Consent Action Network, a Texas-based nonprofit group founded by former daytime television producer Del Bigtree that campaigns against requiring vaccines, in part by citing unsubstantiated or debunked claims about their dangers, has advertised Siri & Glimstad’s services and sought plaintiffs for challenges to mandates.

“If you or anyone you know is being required by an employer or school to receive a covid-19 vaccine, ICAN is offering to support legal action on your behalf to challenge the requirement,” reads an advertisement on a blog run by Children’s Health Defense, a group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that spreads what Kennedy’s family members say is anti-vaccine misinformation.

Even before the pandemic, legal services were core to these advocacy efforts. The nearly $1.3 million paid by ICAN to Siri & Glimstad in 2019 — the most recent year for which a tax filing is publicly available — was the nonprofit’s single largest reported expenditure.

At stake in this latest contest is whether hospitals, law enforcement agencies and others can require employees to take a vaccine that was made available in an expedited process permitted during a public health emergency — and, likewise, whether schools may require the shots for students, faculty and staff members in the same way many require familiar vaccines for measles and chickenpox. There is little case law on the matter, with only one vaccine, for anthrax exposure, previously cleared in a similar way.

Employers are expected to cite the expansive evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines, as well as the extraordinary health risks created by the current emergency, said Kerry A. Scanlon, a former Department of Justice official who oversees labor and employment litigation at Chicago-based law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

Scanlon believes employers are in a strong position to defend compulsory vaccination, but he said many might shy away from it simply to avoid costly litigation.

ICAN is already claiming victory, thanks to the work of a legal team led by Siri & Glimstad’s managing partner, Aaron Siri.
“Employers and schools that previously required the covid-19 vaccine have dropped those requirements,” the group declares in its ad on the Children’s Health Defense blog. “This includes an employer that did so on the heels of ICAN’s legal team challenging its mandate in court.”

Neither Siri nor his co-counsel in the North Carolina case, Elizabeth A. Brehm, responded to emailed questions. Bigtree did not respond to telephone messages. Kennedy said his organization is “working with firms all over the country” to challenge vaccine mandates and estimated that he receives “many hundreds” of inquiries each week about potential litigation.

Meet the New York couple donating millions to the anti-vax movement

In legal filings and letters to employers and universities, attorneys from Siri & Glimstad focus on the expedited process known as an emergency use authorization used to clear the shots during a public health emergency. Mandating a vaccine cleared that way, they argue in a complaint filed against the Durham County Sheriff’s Department, is “illegal and unenforceable.”

Their arguments go further. Pointing to the principle of informed consent, a tenet of medical ethics addressing human experimentation enshrined in the Nuremberg Code after World War II, their letter to the president of Rutgers University contends a mandate under these circumstances violates not just federal law, but also “international laws, civil and individual rights, and public policy.” Failure to rescind a requirement in Rock County, Wis., the firm informed officials there, “will result in legal action being filed against you.”

“Govern yourself accordingly,” the Feb. 2 letter advised.
Continues in next post.
 

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
Unsettled law
No reference to these communications with Rock County appears in a Feb. 23 opinion column written by Siri for Stat, the health-focused news website.

The headline asserted, “Federal law prohibits employers and others from requiring vaccination with a Covid-19 vaccine distributed under an EUA.” The piece picked up significant traffic, according to the social media-analysis tool CrowdTangle, gaining more than 100,000 interactions on Facebook, meaning likes, comments and shares. It drew attention across a wide range of anti-vaccine groups, as well in forums devoted to conspiracy theories, including ones about 5G and the death toll from covid-19, CrowdTangle showed.

Framed as a legal overview offered for the benefit of employers, schools and other organizations “grappling with whether to require Covid-19 vaccination,” the piece warned of “costly and time-consuming litigation.”

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An employer can’t hold you down to get the shots against your will, said experts in health and employment law, but some believe a permissible consequence of refusal to vaccinate could, in some circumstances, be losing your job. In December, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said employers requiring the vaccine would comply with federal disability law and anti-discrimination statutes so long as they make exceptions for an individual’s disability or religious beliefs.

Still, most employers have avoided mandates. There are notable exceptions, including many universities, several hospitals and Delta Air Lines, which said this month that new employees must be vaccinated.

Many police officers spurn coronavirus vaccines as departments hold off on mandates

Employers will have more confidence about requiring vaccination, some experts said, once the products gain the FDA’s full approval, which U.S. pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, are seeking for their coronavirus vaccine. A decision from regulators could come as soon as the fall, and other coronavirus vaccine makers are expected to apply for full approval soon.

Likewise, Kennedy said full approval will make the legal opposition to mandates more difficult. “You’d need to go to the Supreme Court and get a reversal of ‘Jacobson,’ ” he said, referring to the 1905 Supreme Court decision that found states could force residents to be inoculated against smallpox or pay a fine.

Others said the hurdle created by the emergency use authorization, or EUA, is more rhetorical than legal. “The FDA required as much for this EUA as it requires for full approval,” said Dan Troy, a former chief counsel to the agency.

But the issue has never been tested, Mello said. “Even legal scholars disagree about how to read these regulations,” she said. “There’s a great deal of uncertainty.”


A legal warning

One of Siri & Glimstad’s earliest challenges was brought against a county-owned skilled-nursing facility that has served the southern Wisconsin community for more than 160 years.

The 128-bed Rock Haven nursing home had 15 cases of the coronavirus and two deaths, said Rock County Administrator Josh Smith, prompting leaders to require staff vaccinations. A memorandum issued shortly before Christmas noted that failure to comply would “result in the employee being laid off,” not eligible to return until vaccinated.

Of nearly 200 workers, 16 are on layoff status, Smith said.

Representing a Rock Haven employee, Brehm, one of the firm’s New York attorneys, wrote to county officials that they were “deliberately taking away each employee’s statutorily guaranteed right to decide for him or herself whether to accept or refuse administration of the covid-19 vaccines.”

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ICAN’s legal team remains active on other vaccine-related fronts. Earlier this month, Siri & Glimstad filed a complaint on ICAN’s behalf asking a federal court to order Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to remove the finding that “vaccines do not cause autism” from all communication with the public.

A suit last year against Facebook and YouTube said these platforms had terminated or greatly restricted ICAN’s activities — and offered a window into the group’s communications strategy. At stake was the group’s “ability to reach billions of potential viewers,” said the complaint, filed by Siri and Brehm, along with a California attorney, in federal court in California.

Asking the court to dismiss the complaint, Facebook and YouTube said they had acted against ICAN because it was “spreading harmful misinformation about covid-19 that could exacerbate the ongoing public health crisis.”

Stripped of other platforms to press its case against vaccines, experts said, the group is turning increasingly to the courts.

“It’s a chance to put your imprint on an early area of law that hasn’t been litigated before,” Reiss said. “And to do it in a context that fits your beliefs.”
 

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
The right wing rags are pushing the 'investigate' troll hard.

It is nice to see them answered very well every single time.

I think I get the Republican game.

The insurectionist Republicans like Hawley calling for an 'investigation' into the virus, is a troll.

While pretending like a investigation into a lame failed attempt at a coup is out of bounds, they simultaneously call for a different investigation to give their political talking head trolls (Fox/Newsmax/hate radio/bullshit propaganda news-esque websites/trolls) something to troll on about when Jan 6th gets tossed in their face to try to own the narrative.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
The right wing rags are pushing the 'investigate' troll hard.

It is nice to see them answered very well every single time.

I think I get the Republican game.

The insurectionist Republicans like Hawley calling for an 'investigation' into the virus, is a troll.

While pretending like a investigation into a lame failed attempt at a coup is out of bounds, they simultaneously call for a different investigation to give their political talking head trolls (Fox/Newsmax/hate radio/bullshit propaganda news-esque websites/trolls) something to troll on about when Jan 6th gets tossed in their face to try to own the narrative.
Two questions arise:
1) What is the point of investigating the insurrection and what would the outcome be?
Answer, to find out who in the government might have helped the insurrectionist or incited them and what measures can be taken to secure the capital and prevent future occurrences.

2) What is the point of investigating the lab outbreak theory in congress and what would the result be?
Answer, none as they can't get any answers, or do anything about something they can't prove. China is not going to fly the sick lab workers over to testify or provide data that makes them culpable and liable for trillions in civil damages from every country on earth!

In short, with the former you can obtain answers and hold the guilty to account and do something about to improve the situation moving forward, with the latter you can't find anything out, or do anything about it. One is useful, the other is smoke and mirrors.
 

PJ Diaz

Well-Known Member
2) What is the point of investigating the lab outbreak theory in congress and what would the result be?
Answer, none as they can't get any answers, or do anything about something they can't prove. China is not going to fly the sick lab workers over to testify or provide data that makes them culpable and liable for trillions in civil damages from every country on earth!

In short, with the former you can obtain answers and hold the guilty to account and do something about to improve the situation moving forward, with the latter you can't find anything out, or do anything about it. One is useful, the other is smoke and mirrors.
You could always get Peter Daszak to testify, since he's been working on Gain of Function research for years in collaboration with both American and Chinese scientists, including the Wuhan lab.
 

PJ Diaz

Well-Known Member
You could always get Peter Daszak to testify, since he's been working on Gain of Function research for years in collaboration with both American and Chinese scientists, including the Wuhan lab.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
You could always get Peter Daszak to testify, since he's been working on Gain of Function research for years in collaboration with both American and Chinese scientists, including the Wuhan lab.
He knows nothing that could be used as evidence, he only has an opinion. We are talking about trillions in potential liability, the Chinese wouldn't cooperate and if it was the Americans, they wouldn't either, or would any other government on earth. The only people who know anything that could be used as evidence are in China and they would "disappear" if they said a peep. The same for the data at the lab or the hospital they were treated or any other things that might prove an accidental lab leak.

What you will probably see is a considerable tightening up of safety at these labs in China and all over the world in the next year or so. The lab release theory is gaining ground and circumstantial evidence in the scientific community, but is a very long way from being proved scientifically and especially legally. Congress has other more pressing business, like the insurrection investigation right now, Biden is having the intelligence community give him a report, but this is not worth revealing sources and methods over either.
 

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
I dont hate on people for needing a paycheck in these tough times. I would hate to see anything happen to them in real life because they broke character online. I just hope that the trolls understand what they are doing and are at least looking out for the people that they care about in the real world even as they spew their poison across the internet.

But it doesn't mean the people who are paying to spread these lies are not giant shit bags that must be stopped.
 
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