Alex Kaplan Profile picture
Senior Researcher @mmfa, focusing on social media misinfo/disinfo & online extremism. Statements are mine, not employer's. Send tips to akaplan@mediamatters.org

Aug 16, 2020, 5 tweets

This video pushes the false Bill Gates-microchip coronavirus conspiracy theory -- a conspiracy theory that has previously gone viral on social media & which Infowars has helped push. mediamatters.org/coronavirus-co…

Like with this new video, the Facebook-to-YouTube pipeline was crucial for that conspiracy theory to spread -- including through QAnon Facebook groups.

The original viral YouTube clip has ads, meaning both the account and YouTube are making money off of this misinformation!

QAnon supporters aren't just playing a major role spreading the video: the viral clip itself was uploaded by a QAnon supporter.

YouTube has now taken down the video for violating its policies, but not before the clip earned more than 110,000 Facebook engagements and 45,000 Twitter shares.

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