These Doctors Pushed Masking, Covid Lockdowns on Twitter. Turns Out, They Don’t Exist | San Francisco Standard - Matthew Kupfer
December 13, 2022 - "Last month, Dr. Robert Honeyman lost their sister to Covid. They wrote about it on Twitter and received dozens of condolences, over 4,000 retweets and 43,000 likes. Exactly one month later, on Dec. 12, Honeyman wrote that ... 'my husband has entered a coma after being in hospital with Covid. The doctor is unsure if he will come out'.... Again, the condolences and well-wishes rolled in.
"The two fake doctors, whose accounts urged extreme caution about Covid-19, were part of a network of at least four fake accounts that touted their ties to the LGBTQ+ community, vocally advocated for mask-wearing and social distancing, and dished out criticism to those they felt were not taking the pandemic seriously....
"The fake doctors were uncovered by Joshua Gutterman Tranen, a self-described 'gay writer' pursuing a master’s of fine arts at Bennington College. He saw Robert Honeyman’s tweet about their husband being in a coma, noticed people he followed also followed them, and thought that they might be part of the LGBTQ+ academic community. But after 10 minutes of googling, Gutterman Tranen concluded that Robert Honeyman’s photo was a stock image and their biography stretched boundaries of believability: an academic who left no traces on academic websites and had lost two family members to Covid in late 2022, despite masking and distancing....
"The Honeymans ...present[ed] themselves as members of the LGBTQ+ community. Robert displayed the trans and Ukrainian flags in their Twitter name. Patrick had a rainbow flag in his bio. Robert wrote openly about suffering from MPX, ... and claimed to have been the victim of a transphobic attack in October. Another account associated with the group, Dr. Gerold Fischer, displayed rainbow, trans and Ukrainian flags next to his name... A fourth account, Dr. Steve 'Ste' Ville, who claimed an affiliation with the University of Antwerp, described himself as an 'LGBTQ+ Ally' and a 'Proud Mask Wearer.'
"All four doctors had a few things in common. Three had created their accounts during the pandemic. Fischer’s account dated to 2019, but his earliest visible tweet was from July 2022. The doctors also frequently interacted with one another. Fischer’s first tweets were, in fact, a retweet, a quote tweet and a response to Robert Honeyman. Robert Honeyman claimed that Fischer, who said he was suffering from post-Covid brain fog, was 'the sharpest individual' they met at university. The two 'doctors' sent greetings to each other’s families.
"All four accounts urged caution about Covid. They also amplified the voices of other Twitter users calling on the public to mask, vaccinate and socially distance. At times, they criticized policies that they felt undermined pandemic safety and individuals who they believed did not take Covid seriously enough.... 'Come on china! Stop protesting, I wish we had similar lockdown measures here,' Robert Honeyman wrote in a Nov. 27 [2022] tweet."
No comments:
Post a Comment