There's a lot of disinformation
out there regarding Coronavirus
vaccines and now we're
getting an inside look into one now
defunct marketing firm.
That was offering money to various
online influencers to spread and so
disinformation regarding
the Pfizer Coronavirus vaccine.
Now BBC and the New York Times
reported on this, the details
are definitely interesting.
But we still don't have a lot
of confirmation in regard to who
the clients were behind this
marketing tactic.
Here's what we do know,
an influencer marketing agency
called Fazze Offer to pay
German YouTuber, Mirko Drotschman.
To promote what it said was leaked
information that suggested
the death rate among people who had
the Pfizer vaccine was almost three
times that of the AstraZeneca jab.
The information provided
wasn't true, and to Mirko's credit,
he looked into this,
he saw some red flags.
And he's like, you guys are trying
to get me to conflate things and
make it appear as the whole
the Pfizer vaccine isn't as
effective as it really is.
And so he and
another Youtuber decided to
investigate this a little more.
The other YouTuber is a YouTuber
named Leo Grasset,
he received a similar offer,
the agency offered him 2000 euros.
If he would take part they said it
was acting for a client who wish to
remain anonymous.
So as I mentioned, the two decided
to ask some more questions and
figure out what's going on who's
this weird nefarious client,
who's trying to get us to spread
disinformation about the vaccine?
Fazze told them not to mention
the video had a sponsor and
instead pretend they were
spontaneously giving advice
out of concern for their viewers.
Which by the way,
European countries aren't like
the United States in France and
Germany, that's illegal,
you have to be upfront and honest
about sponsored or paid content.
And then, Fazze's brief also told
influencers to share a story in
French newspaper Le Monde about
a data leak from
the European Medicines Agency.
The story was genuine but
didn't include anything about
vaccine deaths.
But in this context,
it would give the false impression
that the death rate statistics had
come from the leak.
So basically, covering a story in
a way that conflates two things to
basically misinformed viewers and
make them think that more people
had died after
taking the Pfizer vaccine.
Now, the data that the influencers
were asked to share had actually
been coupled together from a bunch
of different sources, and
it had been taken out of context.
It presented the numbers of people
who had died in several countries
sometime after receiving different
COVID vaccines.
But just because someone dies after
having a vaccine doesn't mean they
died because they had the vaccine.
Like they could have died from
a car accident, right?
Like a database of people who had
gotten the vaccine and then for
one reason or the other,
it doesn't state had died after
getting the vaccine.
But there's no causation, right?
You could like draw, you could
say that there's a correlation but
the correlation means nothing.
You have to show causation that the
vaccine is what led to the death.
And that is not what
the data proves.
>> So I think the source of
this information campaign and
the purpose of this information
campaign is the more interesting
part of the story.
But I do want to tell you about
the disinformation itself.
So as Anna was referring to,
first way that they trick you is
they make it seem like it's because
of the vaccine,
but they never actually say that.
So you have to be really,
really careful.
So for example, let's say that
a 100 people are taking
the Pfizer vaccine and four people
died afterwards but they didn't die
of the vaccine at all.
2 died in a car crash,
somebody died of cancer,
the third one died of or the fourth
one died of a heart attack.
And they say,
after taking the vaccine,
four people died, you're like,
whoa, my God.
It's so misleading that's what you
have to be really, really careful.
But there's a second layer of
misleading, they could say,
now in the first trials
of the Pfizer vaccine, for example,
four people died after the vaccine.
But after they expanded
the program, 40,000 people died.
Well, if you give, if it's 4% and
you gave it to 100 people,
four people died again,
not because of the vaccine.
Well, if 4% normally die,
I'm just making up numbers here as
a hypothetical, right?
Well, if you give it to a million
people, 40,000 people will die
after the vaccine
because of car crashes, etc.
So it's two layers of deception
there and it's so easy to trick
people because when they see and
they read after the first round of
the vaccine four people died,
you already worried.
But after the second round of
the vaccine 40,000 people died,
I mean, you're in a panic, right?
>> Right. >> Because you didn't see
the important context and they kept
it from you and, by the way,
I will note here, this is not just
some new disinformation campaign
from these nefarious forces.
So we'll explain that in particular
here in this story, but Fox News
does this on a regular basis.
But I'll be honest, mainstream
media does this on a regular basis
to in other contexts.
So sometimes they do great
reporting as they do in this case.
But when you go to Medicare for
All New York Times will tell you
that this system cost $32 trillion
and they'll leave out that it saves
$34 trillion.
So the information they leave out
is just as important
as the information they put in.
So be careful whenever you're
reading anything.
>> Right, exactly and framing
things in a way to intentionally
conflate two different stories and
spread this lie that people
are dying from the Pfizer vaccine.
I mean, that's the intention here,
it's to confuse viewers or
listeners and
make them think that the Pfizer
vaccine in particular in this story
is somehow dangerous compared to
the AstraZeneca vaccine.
So the influencers by the way were
also provided with a list of links
to share as I mentioned.
Dubious articles which all use
the same set of figures that
supposedly showed the Pfizer
vaccine was dangerous.
When Leo and Mirko expose the Fazze
campaign on Twitter all of those
articles except the Le Monde story
disappeared from the web.
>> Gee, I wonder if they were
nefarious or not?
Or if they were legitimate
news sources?
No, of course the minute they
are caught,
get rid of the fingerprints.
>> Now unfortunately, there were
some YouTubers who took the bait.
I mean, think about it,
you're talking about young people,
they're making content,
someone approaches them with money,
and it's easy to lure people in
with that, right?
So I don't want to be too hard on
them because my guess is maybe
they didn't dig deep,
maybe they didn't realize what was
going on >> By the way and it just
to back up what you're saying.
The two people that took the bait
didn't appear to be in the news
business, >> Right, exactly >> So
it might have been easier to trick
them, now there are folks who are
in the news business in America.
Who take the bait anyway?
>> Exactly.
>> That's a different story.
>> Exactly, yeah, so
the ones that were talking about
who did take the bait one of them
does videos about cars and dating.
The other one is a prankster,
content creator, right?
So they're not in
the news industry and so they're
particularly vulnerable to these
types of disinformation campaigns.
>> And by the way,
why did they take it?
Money >> Yeah.
>> They offered a lot
of money to put this information
into their videos.
>> Now let's talk about who's
behind it or at least what we know
regarding who's behind it.
So, what's Fazze?
Well, it turns out that Fazze is
part of ad now, which is a digital
marketing company registered in
both Russia and the UK.
Am I allowed to say that?
I hope that doesn't trigger
anyone, okay?
>> My God you said the word
Russia Ana, Russia Gate,
Russia Gate Russia Gate.
>> I know it's -,
>> Turn off your mind everybody,
if you're a right wing or
you're all left turn off your mind,
the word Russia has been spoken, so
you can now ignore the rest of
[CROSSTALK] >> I should have
offered a trigger warning, but
it is in fact registered in Russia
and the UK.
But that's all we know so
far, right?
Now remember Russia has its own
vaccine, the Sputnik vaccine.
There's a possibility that maybe
the disinformation campaign
is an effort to hurt the Pfizer
vaccine in order to increase
the usage of the Sputnik vaccine,
I don't know,, right?
I'm just giving you potential
reasons for what's going on.
But here's what we do know,
one of the directors for
the British Arm of Ad Now got into
contact with the BBC.
His name is Evans Tolladay and
Tolladay said that he had very
little to do with Fazze,
which he said was a joint venture
between his fellow director.
A Russian man named Stanislav
Fesenko and another person whose
identity he didn't know.
>> Yeah.
And so by the way, what so they've
got their headquarters in Moscow.
They open up this branch in the UK
with this guy, and they say, okay,
here's your one contact this
Russian guy from Moscow.
And then as soon as they get
in trouble,
they shut everything down,okay?
And when I don't know if there's
a British guy that was their
partner ever asked the question or
he just won't tell the press,
I don't know that part.
But all the companies involved will
absolutely positively refuse to
disclose who the other partner in
this venture is.
So and that partner is in Russia,
turn off your minds,
turn off your minds, okay.
Now as you're going to see
this story isn't about Russia.
There's this information campaigns
coming out of China, Bolivia,
Israel, you name it, okay?
India and
Mexico and by the way, there's one
unifying thread is almost all right
wing governments, okay?
And money and power are at stake
and so by the way if you're saying
Venezuela is another one but
the the left wing government that
has the power there do it?
No, it's right wing forces that
are trying to destabilize
the government of Venezuela and
Bolivia.
Originally when
Bolivia was left wing, right?
Now that it's right wing,
they wanted to maintain the right
wing power in Bolivia.
It turns out being against right
wing authoritarian governments
everywhere is the correct thing to
do, instead of just saying, hey,
I don't like American imperialism.
But when other countries do right
wing authoritarian
governments, yay.
India is a huge culprit in
this by the way, Modi's government.
>> Yes. >> He practices this for
different issues on a massive
scale.
>> I guess a small silver lining
was that the disinformation
campaign by the right wingers in
Bolivia didn't work and
when they held elections,
the right wing got voted out.
So it doesn't always work but
in the case of
a global pandemic, okay?
Where we're already experiencing
vaccine hesitancy,
we can't afford to allow this kind
of disinformation to flow
through the media.
Whether it be through independent
media, through YouTube
influencers or corporate media.
We need to encourage people to get
vaccinated and
the actual data speaks for itself.
For anyone who questions
the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine,
the Moderna vaccine, Johnson and
Johnson vaccine,
please look at the hard data.
Don't just watch random,
don't even take our word for it.
Be an advocate for yourselves,
please get vaccinated keep
yourselves and your family safe.
The stories about people on their
deathbeds regretting not getting
vaccinated are heartbreaking.
I don't care what your political
ideology is,
please be an advocate for
yourselves and do the right thing.
Get yourself vaccinated.
>> Guys, this story in and
of itself is already disastrous
because it's literally leading to
people's deaths.
But the bigger stories about this
information overall and a mountain
of disinformation already exists
and another giant wave is coming,
because now everybody realizes it's
so easy.
It's so easy to pay off influencers
and to funnel them money somehow.
And there's so
many different ways to do it.
And sometimes the more
sophisticated operations come from
the actual governments themselves.
But now they realize, we can
outsource it, people always want to
make a buck so we can get a front
company to pay off influencers and,
or just create social media and
then push it out.
And then that way we have
plausible deniability, the Russian
government didn't do it or
the Indian government didn't do it
or the Bolivian right-wing
government didn't do it.
We didn't do it, XYZ incorporated
did it or XYZ incorporated
they won't say who they got
the money from but hey lets say
that's capitalism maybe, right?
And so look when I
first saw the story fresh I'm like,
why would it be Russia?
I thought it was AstraZeneca
because it said Pfizer is bad,
AstraZeneca is good.
I was maybe this secret
donors AstraZeneca, right?
[LAUGH] But it looks like it traces
back to Moscow AstraZeneca is
a legitimate company.
They're not going to want to do
route something through Moscow
that's going to get them on a lot
of trouble and cost them more
money than it's worth.
And then if you're wondering why
did they do that in Germany and
France, but
they didn't do that here, right?
Because this story does not
involve America.
>> Right. >> The reason is we have
plenty of vaccines in America.
Our knuckleheads won't even
take it, right?
>> Yeah. >> So whereas in Europe,
Sputnik V, I think it's the vaccine
is called the Russian version is
a real contender.
If they get people to stop taking
Pfizer they might take Sputnik V.
And so by the way, it doesn't mean
that it's the Russian government,
it could be the creators of
the particular oligarch in charge
of that company that produces
Sputnik V.
I mean, if you take the Sputnik 5
vaccine, God bless your hearts.
Okay, but to be fair, I don't know
the science behind Sputnik.
>> They got to come up with new
names for things, man.
>> I know everything in
Russia's Sputnik, right?
>> You know, it's like a little
more creativity we don't know about
the efficacy of Sputnik.
My guess is it's fine, right?
>> That's not my guess at all,
please do your own research.
>> Yeah do your own research but
my point is get vaccinated,
just get vaccinated and be
sceptical of any type of content,
whether it be online or
on television that discourages you
from getting vaccinated.
>> Yeah, I got to
tell you two last couple things.
First of all, I'll put the links
down to the BBC and New York Times
articles please read them because
they're fascinating, okay?
And back to China and India,
they're running the same exact
scams as Russia has been
accused of here in America.
But they're doing it obviously for
their own interests and sometimes
in American but oftentimes
in other countries, right?
Whenever China's caught they do
the same exact lie, right?
My God, it's American imperialist
that are beating up on poor China.
We were just cracking the skulls of
the Hong Kong protesters, and
now America is discriminating
against us and
they get their own useful idiots or
whoever they are to defend China.
And say it's all America's fault
that China's taking away
the rights of people in Hong Kong.
Any as useful idiots believe things
like that, right?
Do we want to bomb China?
Are you nuts?
Of course not, right?
But does that mean China's angelic?
Are you crazy?
Of course not,
they're all looking out for
their own interests.
I think the India one is it's too
long to get into but
it's in the New York Times store,
please read it.
It gives you a sense of like,
just take any government and
when they realize how easy it is to
manipulate social media.
How they use it for
their own benefit in a way that
honestly makes sense.
Of course, they're going to do it,
of course they're going to do
them so easy.
It's so easy to hook so
many people into thinking,
it's all America's fault or
it's all my opponents fault.
It's the left wings fault, whatever
it is, that they're pushing and
finally there was one problem with
using these front companies and
the social media influencers.
They note at the end of one of
the articles,
the problem is when things go bad,
those front company guys are run by
super unethical people.
And sometimes the influencers
are enormously unethical too and
they just want money.
So sometimes they hold up the
governments for more money, okay?
And so it's the grift that keeps on
giving.
So now some of the governments
are wary of using the grifters
because they're grifters.
[LAUGH] Okay, so that's what,
>> Ther's no honor among thieves.
>> No, but that was a nice little
piece of sweet justice at that.