Read on Twitter
Welcome to my Twitter thread demonstrating how right wing media and political organizations exploit science — and the Internet Archive — to spread misinformation downplaying the threat of Covid. @holden, I’m hoping you’ll like this. (1/many)
The story begins this morning, when my <loved one> sends me a cryptic email asking me if I’m aware of this study and if its findings (downplaying the impact of Covid) are still holding up. The email includes this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201126223119/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
The URL linked to an article hosted by Internet Archive, originally posted Nov 22 to the “Johns Hopkins News-Letter", titled “A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19,” describing a “study” by a Hopkins-affiliated person claiming #s of Covid-related deaths are not concerning.
There’s a lot there, so let’s unpack. My first q was, why is the link my <loved one> sent me pointing to the Internet Archive and not the original website? So, I Googled the title, taking me to the original Johns Hopkins News-Letter website where... the article has been retracted
The website contains some pretty good detail about why the article was retracted — because the analysis used statistical tricks (reporting Covid-related deaths as a proportion % rather than raw numbers to minimize the impact) to mislead readers. https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
A more detailed refutation of the study is here: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/flawed-analysis-leads-to-false-claim-of-no-excess-deaths-in-2020/
But that’s not the most interesting part of this story. We return to my <loved one>.
But that’s not the most interesting part of this story. We return to my <loved one>.
I text to ask my <loved one> why the article seemed credible to her. She replied that it the study was from a researcher at Johns Hopkins and they have a good reputation, especially for medicine.
Of course. This is the right answer. Except the “study” was a presentation (not a peer-reviewed study), given by an instructor and program director (not a researcher), of economics (not medicine). But that info was intentionally obscured.
I asked where my <loved one> encountered this link, and she told me it came in an email newsletter (she gets a lot of these) that contained a number of links, and she clicked on it because it looked interesting and credible. That took her to a site called freedomheadlines dot com
Freedomheadlines has an element called “freedomwire” where it repurposes content found elsewhere in the right wing media ecosystem. This particular article originally went viral w/ help of Gateway Pundit, a repeat offender website in Covid-19 and Election2020 disinformation.
Here's a piece of content that has wrapped itself in the credibility of science (presenting itself as a study from Johns Hopkins), while not following the process of science (not peer-reviewed, ignoring retraction), being laundered by RW media to downplay the impacts of Covid19.
I want to point out that the Internet Archive is trying to counter these attempts to leverage their platform to spread misinformation — adding a banner to articles that have been updated/retracted to clue people into this kind of exploitation. https://web.archive.org/web/20201126223119/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
Sad update. I had my <loved one> forward me the original email where she saw this story. It got filtered into my junk mail. She thinks that is an example of the university censoring conservative views. :(
Looking closely at the email that she received, it includes a company name and an address. Quick search for the address returns a suite of low-quality, politically-right, “patriot” branded websites from RedRightPatriot to FreedomClash to DailyPatriotReport. A clickbait farm.
