Facebook Caught A Marketing Firm Paying Influencers To Criticize COVID Vaccines
Image via Chinnapong / Shutterstock.com
In Facebook’s July 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) report, the company announced that it has removed a campaign in which users were being targeted with vaccine misinformation surrounding the Pfizer and AstraZeneca doses.
Described by the social network as a “misinformation laundromat,” the campaign had targeted audiences mainly in India and Latin America, as well as the US “to a lesser extent.” Investigations linked it to Fazze, a UK-registered Russian marketing agency.
The campaign began in November 2020, and it saw the network posting memes and comments dictating that the AstraZeneca vaccine would “turn people into chimpanzees.” Then in May 2021, after a period of inactivity, it posted information questioning the safety of Pfizer with an allegedly “leaked” AstraZeneca document.
An article by The New York Times in May 2021, during the second phase of the campaign, states that various French and German influencers had received strange messages from Fazze, which claimed to be a marketing platform for influencers and advertisers.
Une agence m’a contacté pour partager, en échange de rémunération, des articles qui décrédibilisent le vaccin pfizer, et de parler de son taux de mortalité. 2/4
— Sami Ouladitto (@SamiOuladitto) May 20, 2021
Incroyable.
— Léo Grasset (@dirtybiology) May 24, 2021
L'adresse de l'agence londonienne qui m'a contacté est bidon. Ils n'ont jamais eu de locaux là bas, c'est un centre laser esthétique ! Tous les employés ont des profils LinkedIn chelous... qui disparaissent depuis ce matin. Tout le monde a bossé en Russie avant.
WTF pic.twitter.com/RKiEpYoMgV
These messages had been sent to the influencers almost at the same time, offering them sums of money in exchange for their participation in the “partnership.” When called out on its actions on social media, Fazze backtracked and deleted its content and some accounts, as well as wiped its dubious website.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the campaign “fell flat.” Almost all its Instagram posts received no likes.
Facebook writes in the CIB report that “it is noteworthy that both phases coincided with periods when a number of governments, including in Latin America, India and the United States, were reportedly discussing the emergency authorizations for these respective vaccines.”
The social media giant also removed a network associated with the Myanmar military. A total of 144 Facebook and 262 Instagram accounts were eradicated across the two networks this time.
[via Engadget, image via Chinnapong / Shutterstock.com]
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