Seeing Is Believing

Summary

Podcast Summary: On the Media – "Seeing Is Believing"

Episode Details:

• Title: Seeing Is Believing
• Release Date: May 13, 2022
• Host: Brandi Zadrozny (filling in for Brooke Gladstone)
• Produced by: WNYC Studios

---

1. Supreme Court Leak and the Abortion Ruling

Overview: The episode opens with a deep dive into the repercussions of a leaked 98-page draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which signaled the potential overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Brandi Zadrozny and guest Paul Waldman analyze the political and societal implications of this leak, emphasizing the persistent volatility surrounding abortion rights in American politics.

Key Points:

• Emotional Weight of Abortion Rights: Paul Waldman highlights, “The abortion question is loaded with the emotional arguments of life, death, and morality, not the kinds of issues a court can finally settle” (02:24).

• Public Opinion vs. Media Coverage: A 2019 Pew survey indicated that 70% of Americans opposed overturning Roe v. Wade. However, recent media coverage has shifted focus towards political maneuvers rather than reflecting this public sentiment (03:03).

• Impact of the Leak: Waldman criticizes the leak as “fundamentally destructive to the Supreme Court of the United States, to the rule of law, and to our Constitution” (03:09). Republicans are portrayed as leveraging the leak to intimidate justices, while Democrats criticize the actions as “reprehensible” (03:13).

• Republican Strategy Post-Leak: Waldman discusses how Republicans aim to maintain the court’s conservative stance without appearing overtly partisan, to preserve the court’s legitimacy and avoid backlash against the political shift (04:52).

Notable Quotes:

• Paul Waldman: “If the public starts to see the court as just an arm of the Republican Party... we might undertake serious reforms like instituting term limits for justices” (05:08).

• Waldman: “They [conservatives] would like nothing more than to have that train just keep running... if the court's legitimacy comes into serious question, that's a threat to the operation of that system” (05:26).

---

2. Moral Panics and TikTok Trends

Overview: Micah Lowinger presents a taxonomy of moral panics surrounding TikTok, comparing current concerns to historical fears about radio and video games. The discussion revolves around how media coverage often exaggerates the impact of social media trends, leading to unwarranted hysteria.

Key Points:

• Historical Context of Moral Panics: Dr. Amy Orban comments on recurring patterns where new technologies are blamed for societal issues, citing examples from the 1940s radio fears to the 1950s comic book worries (28:08).

• TikTok's Unique Challenges: Lowinger identifies TikTok's aggressive and remixable algorithm as a catalyst for rapid spread of both positive content and harmful misinformation (27:19).

• Taxonomy of TikTok Panics:

  1. Coordinated Panic: Organized efforts to spread fear, such as the “Devious Licks” trend initially amplified by Meta’s consulting firm, Targeted Victory, to discredit TikTok.
  2. Rumor Mill Panic: Misinformation spreading through rumors, like the fabricated “Slap a Teacher” challenge and “National Rape Day,” which led to unnecessary school lockdowns.
  3. Local Crime Panic: Exaggerated reports from local police about trends that either don't exist or are significantly overstated, often termed as “copaganda.”
  4. PSA Panic: Sensationalized public service announcements that link longstanding behaviors to new social media trends without substantial evidence.

Notable Quotes:

• Taylor Lorenz: “If a reporter just says it trended, where's the evidence? How much did it trend? Where did it trend? What made it trend?” (14:32).

• Micah Lowinger: “The Tide Pod story was totally overblown... the vast majority of these poison calls were related to children under 5, not teenagers” (15:30).

Insights:

• Media's focus on conflict and sensationalism often distorts the actual scale and impact of social media trends.
• Consumers are encouraged to critically evaluate news reports by verifying the existence and scale of claimed trends and considering the broader context.

---

3. The Tiffany Dover Conspiracy Theory

Overview: The episode explores the case of Tiffany Dover, a nurse from Chattanooga, Tennessee, whose fainting episode after a COVID-19 vaccination became the center of a global anti-vaccine conspiracy theory. Brandi Zadrozny narrates how misinformation and participatory disinformation transformed a benign incident into a widespread myth.

Key Points:

• Initial Incident: On December 17, 2020, Tiffany Dover fainted during a live-streamed vaccination event. Her collapse was medically explained as a “sinkable episode” due to an overactive vagal response (36:30).

• Rise of the Conspiracy Theory: Despite hospital assurances, conspiracy theorists propagated false claims of her death using manipulated evidence, such as screenshots of fake death records and misrepresented social media activity (40:25).

• Participatory Disinformation: Individuals like Joe Leonard and Jason Goodman amplified the false narrative through YouTube videos, fake profiles, and coordinated online campaigns, employing techniques known as participatory disinformation (40:38).

• Impact on Tiffany Dover: Dover faced relentless harassment and invasive communications from conspiracy theorists, making her an unwitting symbol in the anti-vaccine movement. Efforts to debunk the myth were overshadowed by the rapid spread of misinformation (49:45).

• Broader Implications: The case underscores the dangers of misinformation targeting ordinary individuals, leading to real-world consequences and mental distress for those falsely implicated.

Notable Quotes:

• Paul Waldman: “If a woman is not on social media for five or six days, I mean, come on” (41:10).

• Anna Merlyn: “Ordinary people who are made the center of conspiratorial claims often go through the same type of process... they realize that anything they do feeds into the pattern of harassment” (50:02).

Insights:

• The Shane of technology enables rapid dissemination and reinforcement of false narratives.
• Ordinary individuals can become victims of large-scale misinformation campaigns, highlighting the need for responsible media consumption and robust fact-checking mechanisms.

---

4. Conclusion and Reflections

Final Thoughts: Brandi Zadrozny emphasizes the relentless pace at which misinformation spreads and the challenges faced by journalists in addressing and debunking falsehoods before they evolve further. She introduces her new podcast series, "Truthers," aimed at methodically dissecting and clarifying conspiracy theories, using Tiffany Dover's story as a foundational case study.

Notable Quotes:

• Brandi Zadrozny: “Conspiracy theories these days are more often centered around ordinary people. Not Queen Elizabeth or Hillary Clinton or George Soros, but nurses and election workers and pizza shop owners. People like Tiffany Dover.” (49:52).

• Dr. Amy Orban: “Scientific evidence is so slow to accumulate. We never really get to any real concrete policy outcomes until the next technology comes around that people are more concerned about” (31:06).

Key Takeaways:

• Media Responsibility: There's a critical need for media to focus on the substantive impacts of events rather than sensationalizing minor incidents.
• Consumer Vigilance: Audiences should approach sensational news with skepticism, verifying claims through reliable sources and understanding the broader context.
• Impact of Technology: As technology evolves, so do the mechanisms of misinformation, necessitating ongoing adaptation in both journalistic practices and public media literacy.

---

Timestamps Reference:

• Timestamps in brackets (e.g., [02:24]) correspond to the points in the transcript where the quotes and discussions occur.

End of Summary

Transcript

[Paul Waldman]

All of a sudden we're all talking about whether or not it's okay for a few dozen people to hold some signs outside Brett Kavanaugh's house.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

How did a draft opinion upending 50 years of legal precedent devolve into a squabble about picketing suburban front yards? From WNYC in New York, this is ON THE media. I'm Brandi Zadrozny. Also on this week's how to sniff out a moral panic over brand new tech. Once the radio was feared to ruin kids brains. Later it was video games. Now it's TikTok.

[Taylor Lorenz]

If a reporter just says it trended, where's the evidence? How much did it trend? Where did it trend? What made it trend?

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Plus, what happens when ordinary people unwittingly become the face of viral conspiracy theories?

[Anna Merlyn]

First they say this is a misunderstanding and I can explain it. And then they start to realize that anything they do feeds into the pattern of harassment and invasive communications.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It's all coming up after this.

[Ben Smith]

I'm Ben Smith.

[Max Tawney]

I'm Max Tawny.

[Ben Smith]

And we host Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media.

[Max Tawney]

The future of media feels like a moving target. So every Friday we pull back the curtain on the platforms, ideas and people that are shaping the new media landscape.

[Ben Smith]

We'll tell you what really matters and try to figure out what's coming next.

[Max Tawney]

Plus, we go behind the scenes with the most important players in media right now.

[Ben Smith]

Whether you are yourself a media insider.

[Max Tawney]

Or just simply curious about who or what will be all over your feed.

[Ben Smith]

Next, Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media is the perfect addition to your media diet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

From WNYC in New York, this is ON THE media. I'm Brandi Zadrozny. My day job is as a reporter for NBC News on the misinformation beat. But this week I'm filling in for Brooke Gladstone and for our top story, the 98 page document that we've all been talking about since the night of May 2nd. Tonight, the nation's highest court confirmed the authenticity of this leaked draft decision of a ruling that would overturn abortion precedent in this country. Abortion, a perennial juggernaut of American politics tethered to everything from privacy to religion to money to science. And even when the high court ruled on Roe V. Wade in 1973, there were clear signs in the coverage at the time that the issue wasn't going to go quietly into the night.

[Paul Waldman]

The arguments will go on because perhaps more than any other issue in American life today, the abortion question is loaded with the emotional arguments of life, death and morality, not the kinds of issues a court can finally settle.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

The court of public opinion on abortion has actually been settled for some time. A 2019 Pew survey found that 70% of Americans said they did not want Roe overturned. But as you've watched the news unfold over the past two weeks, that public sentiment was not what was being covered. It was all about the political intrigue.

[Micah Lowinger]

I'm really interested in who the leaker was.

[Paul Waldman]

The leak has sparked demonstrations and renewed a focus on who leaked it and if they committed a crime.

[Ben Smith]

Republicans say the leak was meant to intimidate the justices into changing their vote.

[Paul Waldman]

This leak from the Court is fundamentally destructive to the Supreme Court of the United States, to the rule of law, and to our Constitution. And none of these Democrats care and decorum the illegal protest, the illegal intimidation of Supreme Court justices. This is reprehensible. The Democrats, the left, they are the riot party. This is what they do. They are the mob. They don't petition the court. They threaten to or try to burn down the court. These thugs have no business at the private homes of any government officials, these Supreme Court justices or anyone else.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Why are we arguing about leaks and protests? One answer could be that Republicans aren't doing the thing Democrats and abortion advocates did 49 years celebrating. Here's Planned Parenthood President Alan Guttmacher.

[Paul Waldman]

January 22nd, 1973 will stand out as one of the great days for freedom and free choice. This allows a woman free choice as whether or not to remain pregnant. This is extraordinary.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

A lot of political sociologists mark Roe's passage as the moment that galvanized the anti abortion movement. So in 2022, the Republicans didn't celebrate publicly en masse, not even for a day.

[Paul Waldman]

Yeah, it's really a fascinating turn of events when you think about how long Republicans have worked for this moment. Decades, really. And on the cusp of their great victory, it's as if they don't want to actually talk about the fact that they have won.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plumbline blog for the Washington Post, and he explained that Republicans, despite their anticipated victory over abortion rights, are in.

[Paul Waldman]

A tricky position now that they've got their six votes and the conservative legal revolution is really underway, the more important it is to define it as apolitical. Because if you don't, then it just looks like, you know, one more partisan institution and it starts to lose its.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Legitimacy and questioning that sanctity of the court that threatens the court as it exists.

[Paul Waldman]

Now, if the public starts to see the court as just, you know, an arm of the Republican Party that's echoing Republican claims and advancing Republican policy goals, well, then that opens up the question of how you might undertake some serious reforms. Maybe you should institute term limits for justices, which has been suggested. Maybe you ought to expand the size of the court. These are things that have been suggested but haven't really gotten very far. But if the court begins to look entirely political, then those things be begin to seem much more reasonable and maybe something that we should seriously debate. That's a great threat, because what the conservatives would like is to have everything kind of stay the way it is. They're going to get a lot of things from this court that they want and have wanted for a long time, not just on abortion, but on religious freedom, on how much power the government has to regulate environmental regulations, on worker rights, all kinds of things. They're going to be receiving a steady stream of policy wins from this court. And so they would like nothing more than to have that train just keep running. And if the court's legitimacy comes into serious question, that's a threat to the operation of that system that they worked so hard to put in place.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Okay, so this is on the media. So let's talk about the news a little bit. The stories are Democrats are upset about the draft opinion, and Republicans are angry about leaks and protests. Are we covering it all as punditry and thus equating picketing justices sidewalks with a fundamental altering of constitutional rights?

[Paul Waldman]

There's an inherent problem in the sort of he said, she said style, which is the default for all news coverage. Almost everyone in the national media would agree that Republicans tend to be just better at unifying around a message. Once they figure out what they want to talk about, everybody on their side is going to echo that idea. And so if Republicans all start expressing their outrage that people protested outside a couple of justices homes, that's gonna be the subject of a significant portion of the news coverage, whether or not it really is all that important, or even remotely as important as the fact that millions of women are about to lose their reproductive rights. And the other thing that happens then is that because Democrats are in this constant kind of defensive crouch and wanna show that they are the party that believes in norms and civility and propriety. Well, in this case, you saw a piece of legislation introduced in the Senate which passed unanimously to beef up security for Supreme Court justices. And it's extraordinary when you think about the kinds of constant threats and violence that people who Provide abortions, have to deal with. You know, there have been 10 or 11 doctors and clinic workers who have been murdered in recent decades, bombings of abortion clinics. And we're all acting as though, you know, a few people protesting outside a Supreme Court justice's home is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Well, but that makes me think, right. I'm thinking about the end game, the Republican endgame here. What do Republicans get out of this moment right now?

[Paul Waldman]

If you think about what the ideal outcome for Republicans is, it's that Roe v. Wade is overturned, they get the policy victory they've sought for a long time, and there's no political backlash whatsoever. And nothing fundamentally changes about the political situation. And they don't pay any sort of price for getting a policy outcome that is extremely unpopular with the public. And the Democratic base views it as inevitable and not something that you can do anything about. Right. That's the ideal outcome for them.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Is there a right way to report on this issue?

[Paul Waldman]

Well, there's no perfect way to report on any issue. I think we get very, very caught up, especially in the Washington media, in whatever is behind the scenes and looks like it's kind of backroom intrigue. And that's why the leak of the draft decision was so enticing to Washington reporters. Right. Because you have this very kind of secretive institution, and we get this little window into it, and then we can speculate about, you know, was it a conservative clerk who leaked it, or was it a liberal clerk, or could it have been one of the justices themselves? And we can go around and around on that, and that plays right into our perception of politics as just this big, fun game that people play. But I think that the reporting has to focus on what the actual effects are going to be, how people's lives are going to be impacted, how is America going to change once this decision comes down? That's an eternal problem for the media. You know, we always focus on what's dramatic, what has video and pictures, what involves conflict. That may be the most fundamental bias that the media has is toward conflict.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

And is there a right way to read the news? You know, the media, like you said, likes conflict because people read conflict. And regardless of where you stand, how should media consumers be sorting through all of this?

[Paul Waldman]

That's also an eternal problem. It's a lot to ask of people to sort all different kinds of facets of any issue and to seek out the things that are the most fundamental and the most consequential. That's a demand that almost no news consumer can satisfy. Right. We only have so many hours in the day. And even those of us who do this for a living can't necessarily learn everything, let alone somebody who has a, you know, a regular job. So that's why it's incumbent upon those of us in the media to give people the best and most complete view of an issue that we can. And so the message to people who are just reading this stuff or watching it on television is to just keep asking, you know, how important is this thing that I'm seeing? We're arguing about whether people should be protesting outside justices homes? Is that really gonna be something that in a week or in a month I'm going to care about? And then to ask yourself the second question, which is, okay, if I'm not, then what about this issue am I going to care about in a month or in a year? And in this case, it's what is America going to look like? What kind of access to abortion are people going to have? Try to focus on the coverage that gets to those more fundamental questions that you are going to care about in a month or a year and not so much about just what people are shouting about today.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Paul, thank you so much.

[Paul Waldman]

My pleasure.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plumbline blog for the Washington Post. Coming up, a taxonomy of moral panics on TikTok. This is on the Media.

[Ben Smith]

I'm Ben Smith.

[Max Tawney]

I'm Max Tawney.

[Ben Smith]

And we host mixed signals from semaphore media.

[Max Tawney]

The future of media feels like a moving target. So every Friday we pull back the curtain on the platforms, ideas and people that are shaping the new media landscape.

[Ben Smith]

We'll tell you what really matters and try to figure out what's coming next.

[Max Tawney]

Plus, we go behind the scenes with the most important players in media right.

[Ben Smith]

Now, whether you are yourself a media.

[Max Tawney]

Insider or just simply curious about who or what will be all over your.

[Ben Smith]

Feed next, mixed signals from semaphore media is the perfect addition to your media diet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

This is ON THE media. I'm Brandi Zadrazny, filling in this week for Brooke Gladstone. Turn on the evening news and you're likely to be confronted with a deluge of reports of young people having their minds hijacked by TikTok.

[Paul Waldman]

There's a new TikTok phenomena called the pee your pants challenge. The milk crate challenge is behind these.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Recorded climbs of precariously placed pyramids.

[Ben Smith]

The number of hits on TikTok in the billions.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Massive in the billions. There are so many breathless reports of TikTok challenges. We could spend a lifetime trying to catalog all of them. They run from very dumb to very serious, from real to overblown to completely made up. On the media correspondent Michael Lowinger reviewed this genre of coverage, and he started to notice some patterns. Hey, Micah.

[Micah Lowinger]

Hey, Brandy.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

So what do you got for us?

[Micah Lowinger]

Okay, so I've been putting together what I'm calling a taxonomy of TikTok panics. I'm going to take you through a bunch of examples of reporting, some based on true things. Others are made up or overblown. And I've gotten a lot of help from reporters and researchers who cover TikTok much more closely than I do. So first, I want to tell you about my conversation with Taylor Lorenzo, who, as you know, is a reporter for the Washington Post.

[Taylor Lorenz]

For years, I've reported on the false nature of a lot of these teen trends and how they emerge with new technologies.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Videos of teenagers snorting condoms and then pulling them out through their mouths. Yes, that's right. This is a thing.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Back in 2017, I wrote about how teens are actually not snorting condoms or eating Tide Pods or whatever people were saying YouTube was making kids do.

[Micah Lowinger]

Let's pause on the Tide Pods example for a second, which I think we can learn a lot from.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It was everywhere. I mean, there were, like, school letters sent home to my home. Like it was a thing. They're popping detergent pods into their mouths.

[Paul Waldman]

And then posting the videos online.

[Micah Lowinger]

Much of the early hubbub was based on Internet jokes and bizarre tweets, though there were a small number of YouTube videos that got a lot of attention.

[Taylor Lorenz]

The local news coverage actually brings them into the consciousness. You saw people eating Tide Pods, ironically, because of the panic about it.

[Micah Lowinger]

Even accounting for that feedback loop, the Tide Pod story was totally overblown. Calls to the American association of Poison Control Centers concerning laundry detergent cases were trending down in 2017 when the story started. And as the coverage spilled over into 2018, the number dropped to the lowest record since the Tide pods were released in 2012. And the vast majority of these poison calls were related to children under 5, not teenagers.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

A reminder that the amount of coverage doesn't always correlate with the size of the actual problem.

[Micah Lowinger]

So that's what we saw in the YouTube era of moral panics, which sets us up for what we're seeing with TikTok now.

[Taylor Lorenz]

So you started to see pretty much the same thing that happened to YouTube happen to TikTok, where it's like look at what TikTok is making your children do.

[Micah Lowinger]

Which brings to the first in my taxonomy of TikTok panics, what I'm calling the coordinated panic. It all started with an infamous trend called Devious Licks.

[Paul Waldman]

A whole new destructive TikTok craze has teens stealing and damaging property at schools.

[Jason Goodman]

We called Devious Licks, and students have been recording themselves vandalizing and stealing school property.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

The result is thousands of dollars in.

[Paul Waldman]

Damage to schools across the Bay Area.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

And the country, all documented for likes on TikTok.

[Taylor Lorenz]

It's true that kids were vandalizing their schools, as kids have always done, but a lot of it was attributed to TikTok when it really shouldn't have been.

[Micah Lowinger]

The Devious Licks trend wasn't as well known until it was deliberately pushed to local outlets across the country by Facebook's parent company, Meta, which Taylor Lorenz revealed in a bombshell scoop earlier this year.

[Taylor Lorenz]

What myself and my colleague Drew Harwell revealed was that Meta had actually hired Targeted Victory, a well known Republican consulting firm, to help plant Negative stories about TikTok across the country in local news markets.

[Micah Lowinger]

Basically, Meta was tired of being the subject of constant public scrutiny and wanted to convince parents and public officials across the country that TikTok was the real menace. But here's a sort of funny twist. Rumors about Devious Licks had actually started on Facebook, not TikTok. Of course, the coordinated campaign to get local media to cover this didn't mention.

[Taylor Lorenz]

That a bunch of state Attorney generals have announced an investigation into TikTok and its harm in children.

[Paul Waldman]

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigation to find out if TikTok uses special techniques to lure young users causing harm to them.

[Taylor Lorenz]

And so Targeted Victory and Meta were very interested in pushing these negative local news stories in those specific markets in hopes of pressuring state attorney generals to take action against TikTok.

[Micah Lowinger]

Targeted victory and Meta also pressured local outlets to cover the so called Slap a Teacher Challenge.

[Paul Waldman]

Educators beware. That's the warning from the California Teachers.

[Ben Smith]

Association letting them know about a potential TikTok trend.

[Paul Waldman]

So there is a list already written out. It goes month by month telling kids.

[Max Tawney]

What to do and film it, then.

[Paul Waldman]

Put it on TikTok.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

The challenge for the month of October. Slap a Teacher.

[Micah Lowinger]

Slap a teacher hadn't started yet, but the idea was that there was a nationwide plan among teenagers to slap their teachers starting at the beginning of the month. And this fake list of so called future challenges had once again originated on Facebook, where it circulated in teacher and Police groups. But you wouldn't know that from the coverage.

[Taylor Lorenz]

There's not even a single example in these stories of a slap a teacher video. If a reporter just says it trended, where's the evidence? How much did it trend? Where did it trend? What made it trend?

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Yeah, it feels like the words trend and viral can be a bit of a cheat code for journalists because they don't require much proof. And it really does help punch up a story to feel more urgent.

[Micah Lowinger]

Yes, exactly. I think that's a really important point, and it's one that I heard from other reporters on this beat, like Ryan Broderick, who writes the Garbage day newsletter. I think the scale of TikTok makes it very hard to judge whether something's important on the app. The views are so high on the content that people assume that it must matter. You know, a trend of, like, four people doing something can feel like this massive movement when in fact, it doesn't matter at all. Okay, so I want to move on from the coordinated panic stories to what I'm calling the rumor mill panic. Brandi, did you hear about last year's National Rape Day?

[Brandi Zadrozny]

I can't believe I've missed some of these, but, no, I missed that one as well.

[Jason Goodman]

This one is triggering for me. It really is part of what kind of pushed me into doing TikTok misinformation research in the first place.

[Micah Lowinger]

I called up Abby Richards, who has written a lot about how conspiracy theories spread on the platform.

[Jason Goodman]

It's unclear exactly where this started, this idea that a big group of men were gonna just go out and rape women, which is a gross misunderstanding of how sexual violence is perpetrated, because most sexual assault is committed by somebody that the victim knows and often trusts, like.

[Micah Lowinger]

Slap a Teacher Day. It was unclear in the moment what the source of the concern was, but there was a rumor, and that is what set the app on fire.

[Jason Goodman]

We really awareness videoed it into existence. All of the videos surrounding it were about like, oh, I don't know if this is true, but if it is, be careful. I don't know how many guys are.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Going to be participating in this, but be extra careful.

[Jason Goodman]

So get your mace, get your tasers. Don't go anywhere.

[Paul Waldman]

I don't know whether it's a sick.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

Twisted joke or if it's a call to action.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

So I want to remind everybody to.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

Be prepared to save your own life.

[Jason Goodman]

And then the news coverage about it was not critical at all.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It's hard to believe this is actually.

[Taylor Lorenz]

A thing, and I'm reporting on this to tell you about it this morning.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

A group of men on the popular.

[Taylor Lorenz]

Social media app called TikTok have declared.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

April 24 as national rape Day. That's right, you heard me.

[Micah Lowinger]

But when April 24 rolled around, nothing happened. And a very similar phenomenon occurred later in 2021 with National School Shooting Day on December 17th.

[Jason Goodman]

It seems you've started because there was some reported video to a school administrator. And then once the school posted about it on Facebook and the local law enforcement to post about it on Facebook, it became this game of telephone of just be careful. You should know.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

The TikTok challenge encourages students to make threats against their school, and it's supposed to happen today.

[Micah Lowinger]

Ultimately, some reports noted that the department of homeland security and local police believed these threats were totally unfounded. But by the time December 17th rolled around, the panic had spread too far.

[Paul Waldman]

Schools are canceled in California, Texas, Missouri, and Minnesota. I've seen a dozen kids come into.

[Micah Lowinger]

The front office here at this particular.

[Paul Waldman]

School location today, feared for their lives.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It's a little scary.

[Taylor Lorenz]

I don't really want to go to school tomorrow, though.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It seems like one of the themes here is that news reports claiming that teens are gonna do something on a certain day nationwide probably isn't gonna come to fruition.

[Micah Lowinger]

And another theme in the coverage that I've noticed is a reliance on police sources. Which brings us to the third in my taxonomy of TikTok panics. What I'm calling the local crime panic.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

I call it copaganda. A new TikTok challenge has Massillon residents understandably upset.

[Paul Waldman]

Hey, koolaid. Oh y. Inspired by old Kool Aid commercials being.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Reported across the country, Massillon police posted.

[Paul Waldman]

This warning on Facebook about young people.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Busting through fences, causing thousands of dollars in damages.

[Micah Lowinger]

Brandi. There were reports like this in New York, Idaho and Ohio. Palmer Hosh, a reporter for Insider, reached out to TikTok, and the company told her there was no evidence that videos of this so called Kool Aid man challenge ever existed on the app. My best guess is that local police, who, by the way, are not experts in youth culture, were basing this idea off of videos of drunken adult men busting through drywall, which have been circulating online for years.

[Paul Waldman]

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, yeah.

[Micah Lowinger]

And by the way, I found tons of news reports about the same form of vandalism that predate TikTok by years. Here's one from 2011.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

James Tidwell has had it with the female fence crashers.

[Paul Waldman]

With the help of police, he installed.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Some hidden cameras and look what those cameras caught at midnight Sunday. It shows two teens body slamming the vinyl fence, taking several sections down.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

Oh my God.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

This hidden camera actually caught another teenage urinating in the neighbor's driveway, then struggling to get her pants back on before making a mad dash for the fence. And then now she's peeing.

[Micah Lowinger]

How is this the news?

[Brandi Zadrozny]

I'm sorry, it's too much.

[Micah Lowinger]

I think it's fair to say TikTok did not create this problem.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Another thing that I'm picking up on from these examples is that TikTok, because it's the hot platform, it sort of allows journalists to put a fresh coat of paint on an old trend. Intentionally or not.

[Micah Lowinger]

Yes, exactly. Which brings me to the last category in my taxonomy, what I'm calling the PSA Panic. It follows a common format. First, there's a frightening anecdote which is linked to what's described as an Internet trend. Followed by an expert saying, this is dangerous. Don't let your kids do this. And a conclusion that you should have a conversation with your kids about what they're doing and seeing online. Like the so called dry scooping challenge, meaning eating pre workout supplements without dissolving them in water.

[Paul Waldman]

A Tennessee woman experiences the dangerous consequences of this whole new social media TikTok challenge.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

All right guys, so I had a heart attack. As most of you guys know from taking this, Redcon won total war.

[Micah Lowinger]

This was a Fad prior to TikTok. I've been able to find YouTube videos and posts on fitness websites dating back to 2019, but none of the recent reports that I've seen really spell that out or tell us how common this is. Much like my last example, what's known as the Blackout challenge.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

A 12 year old boy is on life support after his parents say he.

[Paul Waldman]

May have tried a social media challenge.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

There's a new TikTok challenge putting teenagers at risk. So we want to talk about it. It's called the Blackout Challenge.

[Paul Waldman]

The Blackout Challenge. This is where you hold your breath until you pass out.

[Micah Lowinger]

I saved this example for last because it's the most disturbing and sensitive. And I want to be clear that even just one child committing this type of self harm is too many. But much of the recent TV coverage I've seen on this tends to focus on like a couple anecdotes without really addressing the context, which is that the choking game, as it's sometimes called, has been around since as early as the 1930s. The CDC found that about 82 kids have died from this between 1995 and 2007 and it's definitely possible social media has supercharged those numbers since. But without good investigative journalism or more academic research, we can only speculate, which is one of my main points in this taxonomy. As journalists, we need to be clear about the scale of a given harm or threat. And if we don't know, we need to make that clear too. But more often than not, these reports just leave so much open to the imagination.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

I agree, Maika, but we shouldn't go easy on TikTok either. Conspiracy theories, extremist content and misinformation. They travel extraordinarily fast on that app. And TikTok hasn't made it clear that they have a great handle on tamping it down.

[Micah Lowinger]

It's the most aggressive algorithm I've ever seen when it comes to recommendations. Ryan Broderick it's the most remixable platform I've ever seen. It's the fastest, most mobile platform I've ever seen. And so the damage that you can do with it is on a different level. And I imagine TikTok and academics are like, studying these phenomena. And perhaps as the National Attorney's general investigation into the platform ramps up, there will be, you know, lots more discussion about the particular harms of TikTok. But as a news consumer, I think it's really important that we all kind of take a deep breath and recognize that we've been here before.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

It's this cycle that seems to repeat all over again, from the printing press to the radio to video games to smartphones and social media.

[Micah Lowinger]

Dr. Amy Orban leads the digital mental health program at the University of Cambridge. She studied how throughout history, adults have routinely blamed new tech for undesirable behavior in kids.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

I actually came across one paper by a researcher called Mary Preston, who in the 1940s published a piece around children's reactions to the radio, which was just kind of really increasing in popularity in American society. And she noted that over half of the children she studied were becoming addicted to the radio. And that was having an impact on their body and their health. And they were using this addiction as an alcoholic does drink.

[Micah Lowinger]

WNYC's archivist Andy Lancet was kind enough to dust off this incredible broadcast from 1947.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

So cool.

[Jason Goodman]

Are you telling me, Mrs. Bavarian, that children from the ages of 8 through 12 stay up to listen to the radio after 9:30, especially during the school week? Shocking as this may seem, Mrs. Cosmides, the unfortunate fact is that there are many parents who, to the detriment of the health and well being of their Children do permit them to do just that.

[Micah Lowinger]

After the moral panic around radio, there was one about comic books in the 1950s which was powered by some pretty familiar sensational news reports.

[Paul Waldman]

Or what about the effect of these comic books on the children? All of our testimony from psychiatrists and children themselves show that it's very upsetting, that it has a bad moral effect.

[Micah Lowinger]

And that it is directly responsible for.

[Paul Waldman]

A substantial amount of juvenile delinquency and child crime.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

That's amazing.

[Micah Lowinger]

There are even Senate hearings featuring psychiatrist Friedrich Wertham, whose research isn't exactly held in high esteem nowadays.

[Paul Waldman]

I hate to say that, Senator, but I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry. They get the children much younger. They teach them race hatred at the age of four before they can read.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Whoa.

[Micah Lowinger]

Sorry. I shouldn't laugh at that.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

No, it's wild.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

So Friedrich Wertham wrote about comic books that the issue is, and I quote, chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction are contributing factors to many children's maladjustments. And then only a couple of years later, you have the television and certain movies like Superman being seen as exactly the same thing. We see people using a whole new technology, and we see something else we really care about, and then we link the two, whether that's social media and mental health or video games and aggression.

[Micah Lowinger]

And one big problem with this cycle, says Amy Orban, is that the technological development and public discourse tend to move way faster than the scientific community.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

Because scientific evidence is so slow to accumulate. We never really get to any real concrete policy outcomes until the next technology comes around that people are more concerned about, and they just forget the previous technology.

[Micah Lowinger]

And as she points out, a new technology is always going to be the easiest scapegoat. You know, if we put aside social media for a second. Nowadays, there are so many ways of explaining why young people may be behaving in a certain way. You know, root causes, any number of socioeconomic factors. Maybe their parents aren't around because they're working multiple jobs. Maybe they're stressed out about school shootings and, you know, having spent two plus years of remote learning. I mean, Brandy, you're a parent. Fill in the rest of the list.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Why kids behave the way they do.

[Micah Lowinger]

Yeah.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Oh, God, I don't know. I just have the kids. I don't understand them. None of us do. But I think that's your point, right? To look at any technology and say, there's the reason. That's. That's a wild thing to do.

[Micah Lowinger]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

So, okay, let's distill it down. When listeners encounter stories about dangerous trends on TikTok, what should they look out for?

[Micah Lowinger]

One, are these reports giving you actual examples of the so called trend? Two, do the journalists offer some kind of data about how big of a Trend this is? 3, if the story says young people are being harmed by this, is there evidence this is happening beyond just a couple anecdotes? And four, is this so called trend really new? If you give it a quick Google, you'll probably find out like in five minutes.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Micah, thank you very much.

[Micah Lowinger]

Thank you.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Coming up, how a Tennessee nurse unwittingly became the face of a global anti vax campaign. This is ON the media.

[Ben Smith]

I'm Ben Smith.

[Max Tawney]

I'm Max Tawny and we host Mixed.

[Ben Smith]

Signals from Semaphore Media.

[Max Tawney]

The future of media feels like a moving target. So every Friday we pull back the curtain on the platforms, ideas and people that are shaping the new media landscape.

[Ben Smith]

We'll tell you what really matters and try to figure out what's coming next.

[Max Tawney]

Plus, we go behind the scenes with the most important players in media right now.

[Ben Smith]

Whether you are yourself a media insider.

[Max Tawney]

Or just simply curious about who or what will be all over your feed.

[Ben Smith]

Next, Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media is the perfect addition to your media diet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

This is ON the media. I'm Brandi Zadrazny, filling in this week for Brooke Gladstone. As we just heard Micah say, one of the hurdles to understanding our current Internet ecosystem is that we can't ever fully examine the latest phenomena before it's been eclipsed by the next one. My colleagues and I on the misinformation beat. We're constantly overwhelmed with leads and tips about new conspiracy theories and older ones that just won't die. Most of the time, all we can do is try to shine a light on something and hope for the best. We're really putting out fires here. There just isn't enough time before we have to move on to the next urgent thing. And that's how I came to spend the last year of my life reporting for a new podcast series called Truthers. The plan is to take the time to go deep and show authoritatively what's true and what isn't and what happens when we get those things confused. What you're about to hear is an excerpt from the first season, which is all about a woman named Tiffany Dover, a regular person whose life became a weapon in a global information war. It's a story that begins, ironically enough.

[Paul Waldman]

In a moment of hope Moderna announcing today its vaccine is nearly 95% effective.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It's December 2020, and finally, we have a COVID vaccine. Healthcare workers get the first doses. The local news stories and livestreams are all the same. It's hope on repeat. A nurse sanitizes her hands, puts on gloves, swabs a shoulder. The needle goes in, the needle goes out. A band aid and cheers. On the 17th, the vaccine comes to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Local news stations are covering the scene inside the Catholic Health Initiatives Memorial Hospital. Everybody calls it Chi Memorial. They're live streaming on Facebook and thousands of people are watching. It is two o' clock, so let's start with the vaccination. Sleeve comes up. Swab needle in, needle out. Cheers. Next up is a nurse manager. She's wearing navy blue skin scrubs. This is Tiffany Dover. She's got wide electric blue eyes, long straight dark brown hair, and she parts it to the left. She takes the open seat. She folds her hands neatly in her lap. Her sleeve comes up. Swab needle in, needle out. Cheers. A handful of other employees get their shots on camera. And then three of the newly inoculated doctors speak to the assembled reporters.

[Paul Waldman]

It's important that those of us who have been trained for this set the example.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Things seem to be winding down when someone behind the camera asks whether the reporters would like to hear from a hospital administrator or nurse or nurse. Someone says. Tiffany Dover walks back in front of the cameras.

[Tiffany Dover]

My name is Tiffany Dover and I am the manager in ccu.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Tiffany starts taking questions from reporters. When you woke up this morning, did you know you were going to be receiving the vaccine?

[Tiffany Dover]

I did, yes. So, you know, all of my staff, we are excited to get the vaccine.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

You know, then it happens.

[Tiffany Dover]

And I know that it's really. I'm sorry, I'm feeling really dizzy. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Tiffany places her hand on her forehead and then turns away from the microphone. Then she faints. Some doctors are there to catch her and they help her to the floor. Within a few minutes, Tiffany is back on her feet, recovered, surrounded by reporters, and she's explaining what happened.

[Tiffany Dover]

So I had a sinkable episode.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Sinkable episode is the medical term for fainting.

[Tiffany Dover]

I have a history of having an overactive vagal response.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

She's describing a reflex where your blood pressure suddenly drops and you get dizzy and you pass out. It can be triggered by lots of things. Physical pain, emotional distress, dehydration, sometimes just standing up too long. It happens to some people a lot more often than others.

[Tiffany Dover]

And so with that, if I have pain from anything. Hangnail or stomach, toe. I can just pass out. So what happened is I started getting, I get an aura before of feeling weak, dizzy, disoriented, and it just, you know, hit me all of a sudden. Just felt really diaphoretic and I could feel it coming on. So I felt a little disoriented. But I feel fine now and the pain in my arm is very minimal actually. But it doesn't take much.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

So you feel fine now?

[Tiffany Dover]

I feel fine now. And this is, you know, I have passed out probably six times in the past six weeks. You know, it's common for me.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

It goes on like this. Tiffany keeps saying this is about her, not the vaccine. Don't regret taking the vaccine.

[Tiffany Dover]

No, no, I mean, like I said, a hangnail can be. Caused me to have this.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

By the end of the day on December 17, the Tiffany Dover story was getting all kinds of traction.

[Paul Waldman]

I haven't gotten to the main story today, which is just such an illustration of where we're at, where a nurse.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Is cheering on the 18th. She even made it onto InfoWars, the Internet show started by Alex Jones. That's one of the main clearinghouses for conspiracy theories.

[Paul Waldman]

She's like, yay, I'm getting the vaccine.

[Dr. Amy Orban]

It's so great.

[Paul Waldman]

And then boom, they hit her with the vaccine. She literally passes out, falls over, and they have to take her to an icu.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

There's no evidence that she went to the ICU or needed any medical treatment at all. But the story began to evolve radically, all the way from check out this nurse who was injured by the shot to check out this nurse who died from it. YouTube creators around the world made videos about Tiffany. They racked up millions of views and shares. One guy in Italy made a music video. After the initial round of videos showing Tiffany's feint, posters started to get more creative, compiling so called evidence to back their claims. They also began to collaborate, moving into something that researchers call participatory disinformation. It's where they piggyback off one another's work. On the first day, you just see the ripped video from the newscast. It's literally just that nurse faints. You put it on YouTube. The second day, the third day, now they're reacting to how the hospital reacts. Now they're going to cut pieces together, splice old pictures from social media. Three days after the event at Chi, a man named Joe Leonard made a video about it.

[Paul Waldman]

So I started diving down this rabbit hole, trying to figure out what's the truth of the matter? What's going on here?

[Brandi Zadrozny]

He's an online game developer and software engineer from Annapolis. He's also a prolific YouTuber. This is from his first video about Tiffany.

[Paul Waldman]

As far as I'm concerned, it appears to me that she actually did die.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

The evidence that Leonard was relying on here was something simple. Tiffany had been someone who posted to social media nearly every single day. Her last few posts were proud pics of her new Jeep, a collage of nursing colleagues, a video of a pizza and milkshake steak to celebrate her daughter's 13th birthday. Now she'd stopped posting entirely. Thousands of people posted new comments to her pages. She didn't answer a single one. She went dark.

[Paul Waldman]

If a woman is not on social media for five or six days, I mean, come on.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

The other piece of evidence that she died. Screenshots supposedly of a death record found on a data broker website. Here's one of the most popular YouTube videos that made that claim.

[Paul Waldman]

Okay, just so you see this with your own eyes, let's put Tiffany Dover in here. This is Search Quarry.com and we're going to look for record type death all states search. Okay, Tiffany Dover, number 12. Tiffany Dover, 30 years old, white woman from Alabama.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

What was the name of Tiffany actually does live in Alabama, just over the Tennessee line. It's about an hour's drive from the hospital. But the death records were bogus. These sites are basically people search engines and when you put a name in the box like Tiffany Dover, the first page you get back is an ad asking you to buy a report suggesting that there are all kinds of records available for the person, including death records. When you click on the report and buy it, the records that you are looking for aren't always there. And in Tiffany's case, there was no death record. Truther screenshotted that first page and claimed that was some kind of record. It wasn't by the way. If you're trying that search at home right now, it's not going to work. A lot of the data broker sites just deleted Tiffany's whole profile after all this happened. A separate issue is that on some of the sites anybody can create a record for anybody else. Dozens of fact checking organizations put out articles debunking the death claims. Reuters, the AP, Politifact, FactCheck.org, poynter, USA Today, India Today, Le Monde in France, Estudao Verifica in Brazil. You get the picture?

[Micah Lowinger]

This claim is false.

[Paul Waldman]

The hospital says they want to clear up rumors circulating online.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Nurse Tiffany is alive and well, but all that fact checking didn't resolve the issue. Actually, it got arguably worse in the days and weeks that followed. Truthers started scraping all of Tiffany's social. Social media profiles. They took her photos and videos that included hundreds of photos and videos of her children. They also expanded their investigations. They included Tiffany's husband, and in laws, literally any family members with public profiles became fair game. They accused them of being in on some kind of COVID up. Truthers called Tiffany's hospital repeatedly. One of them, a guy named Jimmy Poole, he was recorded himself and set it to dramatic music. We reached out to him. He didn't get back to us.

[Paul Waldman]

I'm a citizen journalist. Okay? The only thing we can tell you about Tiffany is just go to the memorial website, okay? Is she still alive? I can tell you. Just go to the memorial website. Well, can you tell me if she's alive or not? No, sir.

[Taylor Lorenz]

She's not alive.

[Micah Lowinger]

But you cannot tell me?

[Paul Waldman]

No, all we can just tell you is go to the memorial website.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Other truthers suggested going to Chattanooga to get answers. At least one guy did.

[Paul Waldman]

People might find this crazy, but I'm in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I'm standing in front of the Chai Memorial Hospital.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

That's Jason Goodman. He makes crowdsource the truth. It's an Internet show. A federal judge who ruled against him this year in a copyright case said he, quote, trafficked in wild conspiracy theories. His videos, like the ones exploring so called false flags around the Las Vegas mass shooting and the Sandy Hook massacre, have gotten him banned from YouTube at least five times.

[Paul Waldman]

I just followed some directions, went to the information desk. Security guy basically told me to get.

[Taylor Lorenz]

The hell out of there.

[Paul Waldman]

I did not.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

From the start, the hospital had been cast as a major suspect in the Tiffany story. To Truthers, every move Chi Memorial made reeked of a cover up. Two days after Tiffany fainted, Chi Memorial issued a tweet that read, nurse Tiffany Dover appreciates the concern shown for her. She is home and doing well. She asks for privacy for her and her family. Conspiracy theorists were not satisfied. They called the hospital staff liars and demanded they post a photo of Tiffany holding up the day's newspaper like you do with hostages. And two days later, the hospital actually tried. They put out a video, which is what you're hearing now. But the thing is, no one speaks except for a few people off camera. The video is 21 seconds long and shows Tiffany at the foot of a staircase. She's wearing maroon scrubs, a white vest, and a pin that reads, I'm vaccinated against COVID 19. Posing around her are 20 co workers. They're wearing hospital badges. A few look to be nervously giggling, but it's tough to tell because everyone's wearing those blue surgical face masks, including Tiffany. Four of the women are holding signs with the date Dec. 21, 2020, and messages of support, like nursing leadership supports Tiffany. Christmas garland hangs from the staircase. Behind them, there's a photo of the Pope. It's a strange video to watch. And the fact that Tiffany appeared but didn't speak naturally, it just made matters worse.

[Paul Waldman]

And they have this woman that is not only about 25 pounds heavier than Tiffany is, but her hair is different, or the partner hair is different.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

A reasonable person might look at this video and think, okay, poor lighting, different camera angle. But truthers decided that it was proof, clear proof that the hospital and an ever expanding list of co conspirators, including drug manufacturers, the government, the media, the Catholic church, had used a body double to cover up Tiffany's death.

[Paul Waldman]

The hair is totally different. You see how it lays flat? Hair lays flat. Tiffany's got some swoop de doop action. You see this? She's got the swoop de doop going up here.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Her eyebrows look really different. It makes you wonder if people maybe went to an extreme to make it seem like she's okay and she. She's really not. Is her family being paid to be quiet? Is other things going on real?

[Paul Waldman]

Tiffany's eyes, which are blue, by the way, have a fleshy part that points curls down towards her nose. As you'll see here, the other girl doesn't.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

They made channels on YouTube and Telegram and they made groups on Facebook. They created fake Instagram profiles and websites like whereistiffanydover.com Chi Memorial's video was like throwing chum in the water. Jason Goodman, the truther who went to the hospital, told me he knows where they went wrong.

[Paul Waldman]

If there was a ton of conspiracy theories swirling about me, Jason Goodman, I would go on the YouTube channel and I would say, hey, I'm fine, everybody. You saw me passed out on the news. No big deal. I'm totally fine. Why wouldn't they just put out something definitive with her speaking with the hospital administrator? We're here to squash the Internet conspiracy theories. The QAnon trolls, the morons out there. Why haven't we seen that video? Serious question for you, Brandi. Don't you agree that it's strange?

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Of course, that seems like a fair point. But what it does, it takes all the responsibility and all the blame off the truthers and puts it onto Tiffany and her employers. We'll stop harassing you if you just do what we're asking. And if you don't, we're entitled to keep going. Imagine for a moment that you're Tiffany Dover. How would you handle being the main character in that kind of conspiracy theory? Would you talk to the national media, or would you try to squash the rumors yourself? Would you post a video to your social media account or go live and answer questions in real time? Would you fight back in the comments? Would you report the videos and posts for harassment? File copyright claims against people posting your photos to get them taken down? Or maybe you'd say, the hell with all of this and delete the Facebook page and the Instagram account where truthers continue to post about you. Whatever you think you would do, I don't think you can really know until it happens to you. And it could. Conspiracy theories these days are more often centered around ordinary people. Not Queen Elizabeth or Hillary Clinton or George Soros, but nurses and election workers and pizza shop owners. People like Tiffany Dover. People probably like you.

[Anna Merlyn]

People with absolutely, like, no conceivable public profile get drawn into this stuff, and they are not ready for it.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

I talked to Anna Merlyn, a senior staff writer at Vice. She's the author of Republic of Lies, a book about American conspiracy theory communities, and she's covered a lot of stories like Tiffany's.

[Anna Merlyn]

Ordinary people who are made the center of conspiratorial claims often go through the same type of process where at first they say, like, this is a misunderstanding and I can explain it. And then they start to realize that anything they do sort of feeds into the pattern of harassment and what feels like invasive communications from these folks.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

That feeling, like, appealing to the truthers could be a rational course. I feel that all the time. I can't help but be tempted by their constant refrains of, like, just show us this thing, and then, you know, we'll all go away and you can have your lovely Instagram back and your family can go on a vacation without, like, any posted picture being part of this grand conspiracy.

[Anna Merlyn]

But of course, they won't, will they? Because if she does a video, it'll be, you know, that's not Tiffany. Look at her face. Her face is different. She seems unwell. She's talking like she had a stroke. Like anything she does will feed into it. I am certain that we will see that if she decides to make a video. And that is really unfortunate, but it is true.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Finding the truth and getting through to the people who need to hear it. It's complicated. In five episodes, I tried to tell the story of how this single lie traveled from Chattanooga through the rest of the world, propelled by conspiracy theorists and a thriving anti vaccine industry. In the end, I relearned that facts can only take you so far. Still, I hope you'll agree the truth was worth the pursuit. And I hope you'll check out season one of Truthers. That's it for this week's show on the Media is produced by Micah Lowinger, Eloise Blondio, Rebecca Clark Callender, Candice Wong, Suzanne Gay and Max Bolton. Our technical director is Jennifer Munson. Our engineers this week were Andrew Nerviano and Adrian Lilly. Katya Rogers is our executive producer. On the Media is a production of WNYC Studios. Brooke Gladstone will be back next week. I'm Brandi Zadrozny.

[Paul Waldman]

Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. Since then, New York Public Radio's rigorous journalism has gone on to win a Peabody award and a DuPont Columbia Award, among others. In addition to this award winning reporting.

[Brandi Zadrozny]

Your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all.

[Paul Waldman]

To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.