New ‘Plandemic’ Video Peddles Misinformation, Conspiracies
The second part of “Plandemic” — a documentary-style video that presents a sweeping conspiracy theory about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, patents and vaccines — landed on Aug. 18, spinning together many of the falsehoods about the disease that we’ve been debunking for months, plus some new misleading claims.
The 75-minute video expands on the first installment, which captured widespread attention in early May. At the time, much of the U.S. was under various stay-at-home orders in an effort to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus about two months after the World Health Organization designated COVID-19 a pandemic. The first installment spread a number of false and misleading claims made by Judy Mikovits, a researcher known for her discredited work on chronic fatigue syndrome.
The new video, called “Plandemic: Indoctornation,” offers a more far-reaching conspiratorial take on the pandemic, with an underlying theme that the media can’t be trusted. It suggests without proof that the novel coronavirus was man-made and intentionally released.
The video is heavy on innuendo and features David Martin, a financial analyst and self-help entrepreneur who has a YouTube channel that has pushed some of the same conspiracy theories.
The first installment spread largely on major social media platforms, but many of them — including Facebook and YouTube — removed it for violating policies against harmful misinformation. Filmmaker Mikki Willis — a former model who has claimed on his YouTube channel that the novel coronavirus was “intentionally released” — has capitalized on that fact, telling viewers in a promotional video that it was “the most banned documentary of all time.”
The sequel has been released on two video-hosting websites that bill themselves as being against “censorship,” promising to allow all videos to stay online, regardless of the claims they make. But each site includes a clause in the terms and conditions that allows them to remove content, similar to Facebook and YouTube.
So far, both sites appear to offer only videos uploaded by their creators — Brian Rose, who sells online self-help videos and promotes conspiracy theorists in England, and Ben Swann, an Atlanta-based content creator who is affiliated with the Russia-based, government-funded TV network RT, formerly Russia Today. Swann has made other videos pushing conspiracy theories.
Promotion for the video was done largely on major social media platforms, though, where links to the video have
