Those are the publishers of four of the five most popular Facebook posts of articles about the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine this week. They’re ranked 2-5 in total interactions, according to data from the tracking tool Crowdtangle.
Number one however, isn’t from a news organization. Or a government official. Or a public health expert.
The most popular link on Facebook about the Johnson & Johnson news was shared by a conspiracy theorist and self-described “news analyst & hip-hop artist” named An0maly who thinks the pandemic is a cover for government control.
It’s a stark example of what experts warn could be a coming deluge of false and misleading information related to the one-shot vaccine.
When most Americans went to bed Monday evening, the news about Covid-19 vaccinations in the U.S. was overwhelming positive: the average number of shots administered per day was well over three million, leading to many rosy predictions that pandemic restrictions could ease in the coming months and some semblance of normalcy could return.
But that story shifted on Tuesday after federal health officials recommended a temporary halt in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, after a handful of reports about blood clots surfaced among the millions of people who have received the shot.
Many doctors argue this sort of delay should actually be seen as a positive for vaccine safety: officials are paying close attention to the reports of side effects and acting quickly to maintain public confidence in the vaccination effort.
But experts who follow internet trends are bracing for the worst when it comes to how this news is understood and received by the public.
“This is what I would call the perfect storm for misinformation,” said Jennifer Granston at Zignal Labs, a media intelligence platform.
