Pharmaceutical company Moderna has been accused of monitoring social media and news websites to shut down vaccine dissent and misinformation.
The company has a team dedicated to identifying and combating vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, including monitoring high-profile figures critical of vaccine mandates.
Moderna’s monitoring team includes former law enforcement agents and is supported by a drug industry-funded NGO and an artificial intelligence firm. (Trending: Bombshell Email Uncovered Between Joe Biden And Hunter)
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The company has been flagging legitimate discussions and criticism of vaccine-related issues as misinformation, raising concerns about the suppression of public debate.
The documents reveal a “sprawling effort to monitor basically everything said online, on social media, and in the news media about vaccine policy, COVID policy, about Moderna, and other vaccine companies,” investigative journalist Lee Fang said.
“We know from a separate batch of documents—the Twitter files—that I reported earlier this year, that the same partners that are working with Moderna—PGP and some of these other NGOs—had a direct line to Twitter’s executives, and they also worked with Google and Facebook to shape content moderation policies.”
“None of the reports that we have seen makes any attempt to dispute the claims made,” Fang and his co-worker added.
“Rather, the claims are automatically deemed ‘misinformation’ if they encourage vaccine hesitancy.”
“Moderna, thru the Public Goods Project, pays thousands of health professionals to attack and defame vaccine critics and push social media to censor anyone who says things, true or false, that reduce profits,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya wrote.
“Musk has one of the largest platforms in the world—literally and figuratively. He increasingly uses that platform to elevate fringe vaccine opponents and conspiracy theorists,” a Moderna report read.
“These mandates were not successful in increasing vaccination rates. It got tens of thousands of Americans fired or pushed out of their jobs. These were controversial policies that were eventually overturned by the Supreme Court,” Fang pressed.
“This is not an area of misinformation that needed to be censored. This was a legitimate area of public debate around the very controversial and novel application of public policy that benefited just a small number of corporations,” he added.
“Basically, the government forcing you to buy a certain product and to use it in your body. This is a bodily autonomy issue—a public health area that deserved more scrutiny, not less.”
Additionally, Moderna closely tracks discussions on drug industry profits, vaccine hesitancy, and laws restricting vaccine mandates.
“Where this is potentially problematic is that if you look closely at these misinformation reports, they are clearly blurring the line between fighting actual disinformation—intentional lies—and classifying legitimate points of discussion around vaccine policy as dangerous misinformation,” Fang added.
“They’re taking kind of a broad brush and painting any kind of criticism of their company vaccines as dangerous misinformation.”
The company’s financial success is also highlighted as a potential motivation for its actions.
“According to company financial reports, Moderna made $18.5 billion in 2021 and $19.3 billion in total revenue in 2022. Through the third quarter of this year, it has only made $3.9 billion,” the report noted.
“The most important thing for Moderna is that people keep having their jabs. Smart ads are part of that. But more important is to push back aggressively against any prevailing anti-vax narrative and engage where possible in any discussions around vaccine policy,” Fang wrote.
“That’s where the Moderna disinformation department comes in.”
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