Civil rights advocates have warned for months that the coronavirus could aid recruiting for the most extreme white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups
" during the pandemic, the bureau said in a statement quoted by NBC News. Misinformation experts at the Oxford Internet Institute documented Facebook groups across 33 states aimed at instigating opposition to quarantine measures that rob people of their freedoms and ability to earn a living, according to Aliaksandr Herasimenka, a postdoctoral researcher.
Some had fewer than 10,000 members, while others had grown much larger. “The similarity and design of their Facebook groups suggests that many of these protests across individual states are related to each other,” said Herasimenka. It “might be directed, not necessarily managed, but directed or inspired by some centralized lobby groups that we don't know exactly what they are.”from its network after determining they had violated state orders by encouraging people to take actions that could spread the coronavirus. But the policy hasn’t applied consistently across the social network, and Facebook has been adamant that it is not policing people’s political opinions. The company to debunk the worst online offenders or counter misinformation by pointing people to credible sources., brothers who manage a series of aggressively U.S. pro-gun organizations, The Washington Post reported last month. One Dorr-connected private group called Wisconsinites Against Excessive Quarantine attracted 118,000 members; its Pennsylvania affiliate counts 89,000, according to a review of these Facebook groups. The Dorrs did not respond to requests for comment through their advocacy organizations. “The audience for this stuff isn't the average American news consumer and I'm not even sure the audience is the average person stuck at home sheltering in place,” said Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute. “It’s people who are reluctant to take any advice or instructions from the government at any time, whether it's about guidelines on what kinds of guns you can have or whether it's health-related instructions to stay at home.”The anti-vaccine movement on both continents has also latched onto the coronavirus pandemic. Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog, found posts within U.S. Facebook groups claiming the pandemic is an effort to force people into accepting vaccines and, perhaps, even a surreptitious. Similar messages appeared in WhatsApp messages shared widely in Italy, which has a long-standing anti-vaxxer community, while groups in France have called for a boycott of any government-backed coronavirus vaccine program. Top: Protesters Heidi Munoz Gleisner, center left, and Tara Thornton are removed from a demonstration against California Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order. Bottom: Protesters at Scotland Yard. | AP Photo, The Sacramento Bee U.S. anti-vaccine groups also organized an anti-lockdown rally this month outside California’s state capitol and have taken part in protests in New York, Colorado and Texas, using their opposition to state-ordered shutdowns as part of a broader message about personal “freedom,”Other coronavirus themes emerging online include long-running conspiracy theories blaming the “global elites” for much of the world’s ills, particularly focusing on George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire who has long been a target for right-wing and anti-Semitic groups. Since late January, attacks against Soros and his fellow billionaire Gates have shifted to accusing the men of either spreading the coronavirus or capitalizing on it to push a pro-vaccine agenda. Some Facebook users in private online groups seen by POLITICO also questioned whether Gates was also Jewish. Gates, who has made global public health a priority of his philanthropic efforts, has drawn their attention because of a“Diseases have long been used to promote disinformation,” said Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at, who has tracked the spread of coronavirus extremist content. “But right now, there’s only one conversation that everyone is having, and that’s about the coronavirus,” he added. “The disinformation actors know that as well, and they are trying to take advantage.”
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