For Hucksters And Creeps Every Crisis Is An Opportunity

Michael Hedges March 13, 2020 Follow on Twitter

When the digital realm first beamed everything, everywhere all the time, its creators and adoring fans heralded a new dawn. Alas, Aquarius it was not, more like Dante’s Inferno. Grifters, psychopaths and miscreants came along, soiling the beauty. And that was before social media arrived.

The US State of Missouri Attorney General asked for a temporary restraining order against televangelist Jim Bakker for promoting a miracle cure for the coronavirus on his web-based TV show. Earlier in the week the State of New York filed a cease and desist order after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Rev. Bakker 48 hours to remove the product from sale “to protect consumers from certain products that, without approval or authorization by FDA, claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID 19 in people,” reported CBS News (March 12).

There are others on the web pitching “miracle cures.” It comes from a deeply-held tradition. The term “snake oil” has been around since the late 19th century. Snake oil salesmen at the time sold miracle-cure elixirs at traveling shows. Some mixed the elixirs with evangelical religion. In the mid-20th century the term became associated with deceptive marketing. Rev. Bakker served a 5-year jail sentence for fraud before resurrecting himself with a new TV show.

Google, including YouTube, and Facebook, including Instagram, have begun removing or rejecting ads temporarily for medical facial masks. “We’re seeing a rise in ads that may not mention coronavirus but are clearly trying to capitalise on it,” said a Google spokesperson, quoted by South China Morning Post (March 11). “We’re taking action to stop this on our platforms.” Chinese search platform Baidu began removing “harmful information” about the coronavirus a month ago.

Facebook is also removing political ads that contain “misinformation related to the coronavirus,” said CNBC (March 5). Those political ads have appeared in several countries in varied contexts. “We’re removing false claims and conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations,” said chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, separately. “We’re also blocking people from running ads that try to exploit the situation; for example, claiming that their product can cure the disease.” Facebook also offered the World Health Organization (WHO) free messaging on the pandemic.

Misinformation and disinformation are not equal. The former refers to unintentional falsity, the later intentional, also known as fake news. The internet, social media in particular, are rife with fake news regarding coronavirus from a wide variety of sources.

Purveyors of disinformation are no longer simple and direct with their methods, all the better to cover their tracks. Fortunately, the fact-checkers have also become more sophisticated. A CNN investigation aided by Clemson University researchers uncovered a social media troll scam operating from Ghana and Nigeria, CNN update published March 13. Social media accounts were created to mimic identities in the US, mostly African Americans, and used for inflammatory posts about racial and social issues. Ghanian authorities raided the Accra troll factory in February, which was then abandoned. Evidence uncovered established “individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency."

Twitter and Facebook, then, blocked or removed the fake accounts. "This network was in early stages of audience building and was operated by local nationals, witting and unwitting, in Ghana and Nigeria on behalf of individuals in Russia. It targeted primarily the United States,” said a Facebook statement. "The accounts, operating out of Ghana and Nigeria and which we can reliably associate with Russia, attempted to sow discord by engaging in conversations about social issues, like race and civil rights,” said a Twitter statement.

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