Vaccine Disinformation For Hire; Plus, Hannah Waddingham Of 'Ted Lasso'

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines abounds on social media, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Sam talks to Max Fisher, international reporter for the New York Times, about "disinformation for hire" and what social media platforms are doing to combat it. Plus, Sam talks to actress Hannah Waddingham, one of the stars of Ted Lasso. They're also joined by fellow cast member Jeremy Swift to play Who Said That.

You can follow us on Twitter @NPRItsBeenAMin and email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey y'all, this is Sam's Aunt Betty.
0:03.0	This week, who's behind vaccine disinformation?
0:08.0	Alright, let's start the show.
0:10.0	Hey y'all, you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR.
0:15.0	I'm Sam Sanders, and this week on the show,
0:18.0	a bigger story behind COVID vaccine misinformation.
0:23.0	So as you know, COVID cases are on the rise right now.
0:26.0	The Delta variant continues to spread mostly among the unvaccinated.
0:31.0	Folks supposed to have common sense.
0:34.0	But it's time for to start blaming the unvaccinated folks,
0:37.0	not the regular folks, so unvaccinated folks that are letting us know.
0:42.0	And as much as public health officials and the Biden administration want people to keep getting vaccinated,
0:47.0	a whole lot of Americans still have not done so.
0:50.0	And there are a lot of reasons for this, but for many of those people,
0:54.0	they're just refusing the vaccine.
0:57.0	And a lot of folks think it's because of what they are reading online on social media to be specific.
1:05.0	A bit earlier this month, a review of Facebook found that 11 of the top 15 vaccine-related posts on Facebook
1:13.0	spoke negatively about the vaccine, or were totally anti-vax.
1:18.0	Now, when you look at the anti-vax posts on a site like Facebook,
1:21.0	a lot of them seem pretty straightforward, prominent conservative fire brands like Ben Shapiro or Candice Owens,
1:28.0	saying to their supporters, don't get vaxed.
1:32.0	But some of those posts are a bit more mysterious.
	...

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