Russia tried to spread dangerous lies about Pfizer vaccine, France suspects

French authorities are investigating whether the Russian government is behind an effort to spread dangerous lies about Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine as part of a disinformation campaign peddled to French bloggers and influencers.

In recent days, several French influencers have publicly noted receiving partnership proposals from a dodgy agency, called Fazze, over email or social media. The proposals, written in broken English, offered enticing lumps of money if the influencers spread entirely false claims and doubts about COVID-19 vaccines. Among the proposed claims is the dangerous falsehood that people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have a death rate three times higher than those who received the vaccine by AstraZeneca.

French news outlet Numerama obtained a copy of one of the emailed offers, which directed influencers to “Tell that mainstream media ignores this theme and you decided to share it with your subscriber [sic].” The offer also said to “put a question like ‘Why some governments actively purchasing Pfizer vaccine, which is dangerous to health of the people[sic]?’” The offer directed influencers to end their messages by encouraging subscribers to “draw their own conclusions.”

French influencer Léo Grasset, who runs the DirtyBiology YouTube account with nearly 1.2 million subscribers, reported on Twitter that the “client” wants to remain “incognito” and that influencers who took the offer were asked to hide the sponsorship. The French medical blogger known as “Et ça se dit Médecin” said on Twitter that he was offered 2,000 euros (nearly $2,500) to run the anti-Pfizer campaign. Some German influencers have also reported receiving the same or similar offers.

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