On Dec. 1, Meta said it had removed an “adversarial network” of authentic, duplicate, and fake accounts on Facebook linked to a group known as the V_V movement. The network originated in Italy and France, and was used by anti-vaccine activists to harass specific individuals, as well as spread Covid-19 conspiracies and health misinformation.
Graphika has tracked the growth of conspiratorial movements online throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, seeking to understand how these communities have evolved, and to what extent they have enabled real-world and online harms. In the case of V_V, we have observed what appears to be a sprawling populist movement that has combined pre-existing conspiracy theories with anti-authoritarian narratives, and a groundswell of health misinformation. The group claims to be a self-organizing collective of internet “warriors” engaged in a guerilla “psychological warfare” campaign against the oppressive forces of “medical Nazism.”
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Source: Viral Vendetta