Westneat: How a false claim spreads - Columbian.com - The Columbian

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Danny Westneat is a columnist for the Seattle Times. Photo

When a little-known chiropractor in Woodinville wrote a Facebook post about the coronavirus on a recent Saturday, it just sat there, not attracting much attention. For the first couple minutes anyway.

But then, like the virus itself in a crowded bar, it started to multiply. It was a little tentative at first, but once accelerated by some of the superspreaders of social media, it went exponential and reached all the way to the president’s Twitter thumbs in a matter of hours.

By about 2 p.m., just five hours later, the chiropractor’s post had been shared by tens of thousands of accounts, which means it potentially was viewed by tens of millions of people. It was then promoted by a QAnon conspiracy believer who has 65,700 Twitter followers, and from there, on Saturday evening, that tweet was shared by the King Superspreader himself, Donald Trump. His Twitter feed has 85.6 million followers.

It wasn’t until the next day that a man out on the Olympic Peninsula started chasing after it all.

“This is pretty much all I’ve done this summer,” says Dean Miller. “Debunk bad information going around about the coronavirus.”

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Westneat: How a false claim spreads - Columbian.com - The Columbian
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