At a White House meeting on March 20 about the corona virus, President Trump called the State Department the “Deep State Department.” Behind him, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, rubbed his head and rubbed his forehead.
Some thought Dr. Fauci would insult the president, leading to a critical online response. A post on Twitter and Facebook that incorrectly claimed to be part of a secret cabal that spoke out against Mr. Trump was soon shared thousands of times and reached approximately 1.5 million people.
A week later Fauci, the government’s most outspoken proponent of immediate measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak, has become the target of an online conspiracy theory that he mobilizes to undermine the president.
This imaginative claim has spread across social media and is fueled by a right-wing chorus of Mr. Trump’s followers, despite Dr. Fauci has won a public following for his willingness to disagree with the president and correct falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the containment of the virus.
A New York Times analysis found over 70 Twitter accounts promoting the hashtag #FauciFraud. Some even tweeted 795 times a day. The anti-Fauci feeling is reinforced by contributions from Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group. Bill Mitchell, moderator of the far-right online talk show “YourVoice America”; and other outspoken Trump supporters like Shiva Ayyadurai, who falsely claimed to be the inventor of the email.
Many of the anti-fauci posts, some of which referred to a seven-year-old email that Dr. Fauci, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had praised, was retweeted thousands of times. On YouTube, conspiracy theory videos about Dr. Fauci triggered hundreds of thousands of calls last week. In private Facebook groups, posts that belittle him have also been shared hundreds of times, according to the Times analysis, and liked by thousands of people.
An anti-Fauci tweet on Tuesday said, “I’m sorry, Liberals, but we don’t trust Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
The stream of lies aimed at Dr. Discrediting Fauci is another example of the non-partisan flow of information that has driven a wedge into American thinking. In recent years, extreme right-wing supporters of President Trump have regularly slandered those who see them as opponents. Nevertheless, the campaign against Dr. Fauci is one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts and a member of Mr. Trump’s Virus Task Force. It develops as the government fights a pathogen that is spreading rapidly in the United States.
It is the recent twist in the pandemic of the right panditeria that Mr. Trump repeated for weeks, minimizing the threat of the corona virus and undermining efforts to raise public awareness of its dangers. When the president took a more assertive stance against the outbreak, conservative positions also shifted – but now they’re accusing Democrats and journalists of using the pandemic to politically harm Mr Trump.
“There appears to be a concerted effort by Trump supporters to aggressively spread misinformation about the virus,” said Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, who studied misinformation.
Mr. Bergstrom added that Dr. Fauci bears the brunt of the attacks: “There is a feeling that experts are not trustworthy and have agendas that are not tailored to people. It is very worrying because the experts in this area are discounted immediately. “
The Trump administration has previously shown an aversion to relying on scientific expertise, for example when dealing with climate change. However, misinformation campaigns during a pandemic pose a unique danger because they can create distrust of public health officials when accurate information and advice are critical, said Whitney Phillips, assistant professor at Syracuse University, who teaches digital ethics.
“What this case will show is that conspiracy theories can kill,” she said.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases did not respond to a request for comment on the misinformation sent to Dr. Fauci, who has announced that he will continue to work to contain the coronavirus.
“When you’re dealing with the White House, you sometimes have to say something one, two, three, four times, and then it happens,” said Dr. Fauci in an interview with Science Magazine last week. “So I’ll keep pushing.”
The online campaign is an abrupt change for Dr. Fauci, an immunologist who has headed the institute since 1984. It has long been considered credible by a large part of the public and journalists. He has advised every president since Ronald Reagan and encouraged action against the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Much of the online discussion about Dr. Fauci benign or positive. Zignal Labs, a media analysis company, examined 1.7 million mentions of Dr. Fauci on the Internet and on TV shows and found that until mid-March he was mostly praised and his comments were reported directly. Right-wing personalities cited Dr. Fauci agreed or praised him for his comments on stopping the trip to and from China, Zignal Labs said.
In the White House briefings on the corona virus, he often spoke clearly of the severity of the situation and became a popular hero for some on the left. Then Dr. appeared Fauci, who had been with Mr. Trump’s side during the briefings, not on March 18.
A hashtag with the question “Where’s Dr. Fauci?” started to trend on Twitter. Several Facebook fan groups who praised his medical file demanded his return. The first accounts that tweeted #FauciFraud also appeared, although the volume of posts was low, according to the Times analysis.
Two days later, Dr. Fauci holds his head in his hand at the White House briefing after Mr. Trump’s comment on the Deep State Department. His gesture – some called it a facial palm – caught the attention of Mr. Trump’s online followers, who viewed it as an insult to the President.
According to Zignal Labs, anti-fauci contributions have increased. Much of the increase was sparked by a March 21 article in The American Thinker, a conservative blog that published the seven-year-old email that Dr. Fauci had written to a Mrs. Clinton staff member.
In the email, Dr. praised Fauci Ms. Clinton for her persistence during the Benghazi hearings in 2013. The American thinker incorrectly claimed that the email was proof that he was part of a secret group that spoke out against Mr. Trump.
On the same day, Mr. Fitton of Judicial Watch published a tweet that referred to another blog post in which Dr. Fauci’s email to Ms. Clinton appears. In the tweet, Mr. Fitton recorded a video in which he folded his arms and said, “Isn’t that interesting?” It has been retweeted more than 1,500 times.
In an interview, Mr. Fitton said: “Dr. Fauci is doing a great job. “He added that Dr. Fauci “Hillary Clinton wrote very political statements that were strange for an officer of his kind.”
The conspiracy theory was soon shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter. It was also added by messaging groups on WhatsApp and Facebook led by QAnon, the anonymous group that claims to be privy to government secrets. Right-wing extremists spoke on YouTube about Dr. Fauci is a scam.
Up until Tuesday, Dr.’s online and television mentions were Fauci declined, but has become consistently negative, said Zignal Labs.
An anti-Fauci tweet from last Sunday read: “Dr. Fauci is in love with crooked @HillaryClinton. More reasons not to trust him. “
Facebook said it had proactively removed misinformation related to the coronavirus. YouTube said it was the conspiratorial videos about Dr. Fauci had not recommended to viewers and that it was promoting credible virus information. Twitter said it continued to focus on removing content that could cause harm.
Ms. Phillips, the assistant professor at Syracuse, said the campaign is part of a long-term conspiracy theory propagated by Mr. Trump’s followers.
“Fauci was particularly prominent right now,” she said. “But any public health official involved in a conspiratorial narrative will face the same suspicions and doubts.”
Dr. Fauci was not prevented from appearing on the Internet. On Thursday, he participated in a 30-minute Instagram live discussion about the corona virus The host is the star of the National Basketball Association, Stephen Curry.
At the meeting, Dr. Fauci with a miniature basketball hoop behind him the same message he had said about the outbreak for weeks.
“This is serious business,” he said. “We don’t react over.”