

"Like all people, scientists can be flawed, can make mistakes, can be misguided, and can even spread misinformation on purpose," said Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Buffalo who has researched misinformation in health, science and politics.Įven as Twitter and YouTube sought to stem the spread of Malone’s claims, videos highlighting various segments from the doctor’s hours-long conversation with Rogan continued to circulate on both platforms and others such as Facebook and TikTok. They also show the limits of platforms’ whack-a-mole policing approach. Malone’s rise to right-wing stardom and subsequent fall into social media purgatory underscore how accomplished doctors can exploit their credentials to spread harmful misinformation. Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. "He’s a legitimate scientist, or at least was until he started to make these false claims," said Dr. He bills himself as the "inventor" of mRNA vaccines and has leveraged that title to push one false claim after another. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on the same grounds.īut unlike Greene, Malone has a medical degree. Days earlier, Twitter suspended the personal account belonging to Rep. The platforms’ actions against Malone represent the latest efforts from Silicon Valley to crack down on harmful COVID-19 misinformation. and the environment in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power. Robert Malone, who gained hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers in recent months as he promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods, drew a comparison in the interview between COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. Video of Spotify host Joe Rogan’s controversial interview with a doctor known for making false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube, just days after Twitter banned the doctor’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.ĭr.
