Don’t fall for Joe Rogan’s latest Instagram post

A stupid conspiracy is a weekly column that debunks the mostly wild conspiracy theories swirls around the web, appearing Mondays in the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. If you want to get this column a day before we’ll publish it, subscribe to web_crawlr to get the daily bullet of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.

Let us crawl the web for you. Subscribe to web_crawlr here.

analysis

podcaster Joe Rogan shared a Screenshot of a news article to his Instagram Account that subordinate scientists were Blaming eggs for blood clots that was actually caused by the Covid vaccination. But the article is fake.

In a post to his more than 16.2 million followers On Wednesday, Rogan highlighted an article with the headline: “Scientists warn eggs cause thousands of people to ‘suddenly’ develop blood clots.”

“This is either black belt level trolling, or the AI ​​has become sentient and is starting to screw us,” Rogan said.

user quickly flooded the comments with Remarks against vaccinationsand argued that they had been endorsed for warning that the vaccines were dangerous.

“Since the Covid-19 vaccine people are suddenly forming blood clots and now they need something to blame…” one user wrote.

Others pointed fingers at the drug company Pfizer and joked about the “new MRNA eggs.”

However, the screenshot shared by Rogan is from a fake news site known as “news punch.” An analysis of BuzzFeed News found out that News Punch did second largest source of viral fake stories on Facebook in 2017.

News Punch fabricated articles are successful because they are often combined some truthful information with untruths the supports the prejudices of the readers. In fact, studies have previously attempted to link eggs to blood clots. One such study has been reported CBS News in 2017, long before COVID or the vaccine showed up.

But even with such claims, which have also been refuted by other studiesat no time has a scientist claimed that thousands of people “suddenly” drop dead from eggs.

Nonetheless, the false claims made in the article have now come true has become gospel among anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. Screenshots of the article also go viral tick tock, Twitter, Facebookand other social media platforms.

Despite simple research prove that the article is NOT CORRECTConservatives, fortunately, seem ignorant.

Why it matters

The emergence of another false claim regarding COVID vaccines is worrying as many high profile figures are spreading them, especially Joe Rogan given his massive audience.

The virality of the fake article also shows once again how people even less likely to verify an assertion as long as it corresponds to their preconceived notions.

Do you like what you read? Register to get web_crawlra daily newsletter from Daily Dot, delivered to your inbox every morning.