PHOENIX — More than 23 million people tuned into to watch the Buffalo Bills play the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football a few weeks ago.
Those football fans became witnesses to player Damar Hamlin's collapse on the field.
Following the incident, anti-vaccine activists took to the internet spreading unfounded theories that Hamlin's collapse was triggered by the COVID-19 vaccines.
We talked with experts about how this misinformation blew up so quickly.
"There are always going to be people that are looking to exploit a major global news event to spread a certain agenda...Even though cardiologists told us there's no reason to suggest that there was any link there, the posts created a new wave of misinformation because they affirmed the beliefs of 1000s of social media users who were already primed to suspect that the vaccine was to blame," said Ali Swenson, a news verification reporter at the Associated Press.
She specializes in misinformation reporting and tells us that many of those people were citing a supposed study that allegedly showed more than 1,500 athletes had suffered cardiac arrest since the vaccines were released but that wasn't a medical study, just a letter to the editor.
"There are a lot of people who, understandably weren't so sure about the vaccines when they first came out," said Swenson. "When people are uncertain like that, bad actors are, of course, going to jump on that and try to spread a certain agenda, even if it's not supported by evidence."
That's when misinformation becomes disinformation.
"While misinformation may or may not have been intended to deceive someone, disinformation is distinct because it is purposely false and misleading and intended to deceive," Swenson stated.
Those false facts are not only spreading online but also making their way onto network TV.
"I think this was one example where the misinformation really made its way around the globe quickly before the facts could," Swenson said.
So how can you trust what you're reading online or watching on TV?
Swenson explained, "The best advice that I can offer to the average person is that if a social media post elicits a strong reaction in you, an emotional reaction, pause and take a step back."
She says most of those false narratives are often designed to trigger an emotional reaction and that can blind you to the fact that the content does not include all the facts.
