A mysterious marketing agency secretly offered to pay social media stars to spread disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines
Anti-vaxxers of dubious origin apparently are trying to bribe YouTube influencers to spread disinformation about vaccinations. To their enduring credit, the YouTubers exposed the plot instead of taking the money.
You’ll never guess which country may have been behind this attempt to keep the pandemic going. /sarcasm
An influencer marketing agency called Fazze offered to pay him 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.
[ ... ]
Fazze is a part of AdNow, which is a digital marketing company, registered in both Russia and the UK.
The BBC has made multiple attempts to contact AdNow by phone, email and even a letter couriered to their Moscow headquarters, but they have not responded.
Eventually we managed to contact Ewan Tolladay, one of two directors of the British arm of AdNow - who lives in Durham.
Mr Tolladay said he had very little to do with Fazze - which he said was a joint venture between his fellow director - a Russian man called Stanislav Fesenko - and another person whose identity he didn't know.
He said that he hadn't been a part of the disinformation campaign. He said he hadn't even known Fazze had taken on the contract before the story broke. He couldn't enlighten us on who the mystery client was.
He said that in light of the scandal "we are doing the responsible thing and shutting down AdNow here in the UK". He said Fazze was also being shut down.
We have tried to get Mr Fesenko to talk to us but had no success.
^^^ emphasis added
Yep, this is possibly another attempt by Putin’s Russia to destabilize the West. And it is a particularly clumsy and counterproductive attempt because viruses do not observe international borders. If future vaccine-resistant variants develop because a lot of people remain unvaccinated, those variants will inevitably spread to Russia – even to Putin’s Palace.
At the very least, this was an effort to undermine the Pfizer vaccine in order to make the less effective Russian-made Sputnik vaccine look good.
So MERCI! to French YouTuber Léo Grasset and DANKE! to German YouTuber Mirko Drotschmann for refusing the tainted money and exposing the plot. They probably saved lives and kept people from becoming seriously ill.
If you are aware of any influencers who have been getting offers to spread disinformation in exchange for cash, you might wish to contact Charlie Haynes and Flora Carmichael at the BBC who posted that news story.
EDIT: RFE/RL was on this story in late May. They detail more of the Russian connections.
Exclusive: Meet The Murky Russian Network Behind An Anti-Pfizer Disinformation Drive In Europe