Chris Whitty: BBC Fuels Vaccine “Disinformation” by Airing “Conspiracy Theories”
The BBC is fuelling vaccine “disinformation” by airing the “conspiracy theories” of people motivated by money and vanity, the UK Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has said. The Telegraph has more.
Prof Sir Chris Whitty said “rock solid” science backing vaccinations was being undermined by people motivated by money and vanity.
Speaking at the Nuffield Trust Summit near Windsor on Thursday morning, he said the most common reason for peddling disinformation was economic gain, with some of those doing receiving airtime on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“That is an area which I think we should be honest about,” he said. “Some of our colleagues push some of these ideas for reasons, as far as I can see, almost exclusively of vanity.
“Previously, they were a middle-ranking, perfectly decent clinician or academic. Once they start pushing these, they’re invited on to the Today programme, they have a huge following on Twitter – every time they tweet something out, they get 100,000 likes. It’s very, very addictive.
“And I’m afraid some of the people you hear are simply vain. And again, I think we should be honest enough to call that out.”
Sir Chris said social media “amplifies” disinformation, with chatbots making minority views look popular, adding that people with genuine health expertise needed to be careful about how they engaged with such debates.
“Now, a word of warning – this is a health warning to my science colleagues. What do you do when you see conspiracy theories running riot on the radio, on social media, in the press?”
“The warning is that the aim of some of the things that are said on social media by professional disinformation experts is to get you so angry that you respond. They want you to respond.
“The first reason they want you to respond is you will then repeat their lies to a public, who otherwise would not hear them. So you’ll say: ‘It’s outrageous that someone is saying that vaccines turn your teeth green. There is no evidence that the vaccines turn your teeth green.’
“You’ve immediately told a whole bunch of people who have never heard that big lie, but that’s something they should worry about. So the repetition is the first thing they want you to do.”
Worth reading in full.
Because Chris Whitty (salary £200k) never got anything wrong during Covid…
Ken Hughes
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He used the word “honest”. I’m always wary of anyone who uses that word. They’re often lying themselves.
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