The internet is so huge that it can document pretty much most if not all human activities.
But the thing about the internet is that, information can rarely be hidden once it's online, but whoever spreads that information, can hide.
Fazze is an influencer marketing agency, and a subsidiary of AdNow, a Russian-based marketing firm.
Reports said that the agency was the main entity behind a multi-country campaign that spread COVID-19 disinformation online.
The Russian marketing firm affiliate, maintained a network of 65 fake Facebook and 243 fake Instagram accounts. It used it to spread a massive spread of disinformation campaign targeting Western-made vaccinations, particularly AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Facebook that investigated the campaign, reported. that it banned the combined 308 malicious accounts.
It began when Facebook was under pressure from politicians and regulators in the U.S.. They were demanding the tech titan to do more to combat false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines.
Facebook has partnered with various fact-checkers to validate the many claims that circulate its social media networks, to then label contents, and also direct users to a hub where they can get valid and verified COVID-19 information.
But many think that the company isn't doing enough.
Advocacy groups and other critics have stressed out that misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines are still spreading.
This was when the company said that it removed the many accounts in July for violating its rules against foreign interference and for misleading others about the purpose of the accounts.
The company also identified the entity behind the accounts, saying that the accounts originated in Russia and that it is tied to Fazze, which is apparently a UK-registered marketing firm, working on behalf of an unknown client.
The fake news the accounts were spreading, included false claims about AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines that would turn people into chimpanzees, often using scenes from the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" movie.
The posts use hashtags that suggested the vaccines were dangerous.
The main targets of this malicious campaign, included those in Latin America, India and the U.S..
Things didn't stop there, as the campaign also tied the social media accounts with a number of misleading blogs and petitions, such as on Change.org, Medium and Reddit, and flood them with memes.
The posts that were written in both English and Hindi, also claimed that AstraZeneca manipulated its COVID-19 vaccine trial data and used an untried technology to create the vaccine.
To spread it even further, Facebook said that it's likely that the operation asked health and well-being influencers to also share their content to spread their campaign against the vaccines.
The campaign influenced influencers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to spread the fake news, using data that was cobbled together from different sources and "taken out of context."
Just because someone dies after receiving the vaccine doesn't mean the vaccine was the cause of death.
Among the influencers who fought back, was French YouTuber Leo Grasset.
Fazze asked him to create and share a 45-60 second video on his social media accounts to criticize the mortality rate of the vaccines.
But when he asked Fazze to identify its client, the firm declined.
Because of this Grasset refused the offer and decided to go public with his concerns. Grasset was then joined by other influencers to help unearth this malicious campaign.
