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Newsletter company Substack profits off misinformation | The Washington Post

By Elizabeth Dwoskin

January 27, 2022

Joseph Mercola, a leading anti-vaccine advocate whose screeds have been restricted by YouTube and Facebook, this month warned that the unvaccinated might soon be imprisoned in government-run camps. The week before, he circulated a study purporting to use government data to prove that more children had died of covid shots than from the coronavirus itself.

Shut down by major social media platforms, Mercola has found a new way to spread these debunked claims: on Substack, the subscription-based newsletter platform that is increasingly a hub for controversial and often misleading perspectives about the coronavirus.

Substack, which researchers from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate say makes millions of dollars off anti-vaccine misinformation, on Wednesday defended its tolerance for publishing “writers with whom we strongly disagree.”

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Source: Newsletter company Substack profits off misinformation | The Washington Post

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Accountability Alt-Right Conspiracy Theory COVID-19 Health Influence Misinformation Public Health Vaccine & Medical Misinfo