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Meet the new #COVID19 conspiracy theory boss, same as the old antivaccine movement boss. Great analysis by @aetiology & @doritmi shows how Del Bigtree only had to slightly tweek his disinformation messaging to remarket for the pandemic. 1/n #PBPL222 sciencedirect.com/science/articl 
2/n If you look at their paper's useful figure, aside from Bigtree's "Mad Libs"/form letter-esque re-pivoting, notice how themes play off cognitive biases (cherry-picking, status quo bias) & logic fallacies (eg, appeals to emotion, nature; strawman) plus fear & libertarian views.
3/3 A reader might not realize this, but the authors deserve special kudos for effort. It can be very mentally taxing to watch even 1 Highwire video w/ focused eyes to details. But they watched multiple episodes: disinfo plus very Barnum-esque in its style w/ touches of Infowars.
