Former Cop, Agent of Moderna, Monitoring 150 Million Websites for Anti-Vaccine Narratives
Prior published by The Defender—Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website on November 21, 2023.
By: Tierra Shehzel, APDTA
One of Moderna’s departments has partnered with the Public Good Projects (PGP), a pharma-funded nonprofit, to monitor and suppress dissenting voices on COVID-19 vaccine policy. The department, run by a former FBI veteran, uses artificial intelligence to monitor 150 million websites, from mainstream news outlets to gaming sites.
The goal is to censor speech that undermines Moderna’s vaccine narrative and shape public discourse in favor of the company. Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine transformed it into a $100 billion company and its CEO and founders into billionaires, but with declining public interest in boosters and disappearing subsidies, Moderna is investing in strategies to maintain profits.
One of these strategies is doubling down on attacking vaccine dissent and directing vaccination policy. Moderna’s team, in collaboration with PGP and Talkwalker, monitors social media and issues reports that flag “anti-vaccine narratives” by level of risk. The censorship efforts target posts that encourage vaccine hesitancy, regardless of the claims’ truthfulness. PGP, with “backdoor access” to Twitter, partnered with the social media platform to develop policies and amplify or censor accounts. PGP also distributed talking points on how to respond to vaccine misinformation to a network of 45,000 healthcare professionals.
Moderna, PGP, and the American Board of Internal Medicine recently launched the “Infodemic Training Program” to train healthcare workers to identify medical misinformation. Despite public anger over social media censorship, declining booster uptake, and the end of the pandemic, Moderna continues to expand its surveillance operation and monitor politicians and laws seeking to restrict vaccine mandates.
The collaboration between fact-checking nonprofits, pharma companies, and social media platforms raises concerns about control over public discourse and free speech.