---
title: "The sickness in our feeds: How disinformation poisoned the pandemic"
date: "2025-09-15"
description: "Watching family fall for COVID myths? This post breaks down how disinformation works, debunks mRNA vaccine lies, and offers tools to protect yourself and others."
---
# The sickness in our feeds: How disinformation poisoned the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic unleashed more than a virus. It unleashed a tidal wave of anti-intellectualism, that I watched, in horror, as it washed over the internet and even into my own family. Before 2020, I considered ideas like the “flat earth” to be a fringe, almost comical, form of delusion. I never imagined that the same kind of thinking would be aimed at a medical invention that has been saving lives for centuries: **the vaccine**. The sudden, aggressive rejection of established science felt like a slap in the face.

I’ve always been frustrated by conspiracy theories - the whispers that 9/11 was an inside job, the moon landing was faked, or that vaccines cause autism. But the pandemic took this to a terrifying new level. The moment mRNA vaccines arrived, a marvel of modern science, the digital floodgates opened.

“It was rushed!”

“It will modify your DNA!”

“It’s a conspiracy by Bill Gates to reprogram the human race!”

The arguments were not only wrong, but they demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of basic biology. Let’s break it down simply:

1.  **RNA is not DNA**. Think of your DNA as the master blueprint for your body, locked away securely in the nucleus of your cells. mRNA, on the other hand, is like a temporary, single-use photocopy of one small section of that blueprint. It carries a specific instruction to a cellular machine and then, crucially, it degrades. It’s chemically incapable of integrating with or altering the master blueprint.
2.  **mRNA is incredibly fragile**. The reason the vaccines required ultra-cold storage is sthat mRNA is notoriously unstable. It falls apart very quickly. The idea that this fleeting molecule could permanently “reprogram” you is contrary to its very nature. It does its job and then disappears.
3.  **This technology isn’t new**. While its use was new to the public, research into mRNA vaccines has been underway for over two decades. The pandemic didn’t rush the science; it accelerated the funding, collaboration, and the clinical trials. With the entire world focused on a single problem and millions of volunteers, the testing phases could be completed on a timeline that was previously unimaginable. It was an unprecedented global effort, not a rushed shortcut.

The true story of the mRNA vaccine is one of hope. For years, traditional vaccines required us to use a weakened or inactivated form of a live virus. With mRNA, we simply give our bodies the genetic instructions to recognize a key part of the virus (like its spike protein) and build immunity against it, without ever introducing the virus itself. This is a revolutionary platform with staggering potential for treating everything from HIV to cancer.

So why did so many reject the breakthrough?

The problem isn’t just lack of information; it’s the ecosystem in which we now find it. We’ve moved from an age of shared facts to an age where “my facts” are curated by an algorithm.

This is where social media becomes the villain of the story or, more specifically, the engagement-driven algorithms that power our feeds. These systems are not designed to promote truth; they are designed to maximize engagement. And nothing engages us like fear, outrage, and the feeling of being “in the know.” They create echo chambers that confirm our biases, feeding us a steady diet of content that reinforces what we already believe, pulling us deeper into our bubbles.

The result is dangerous erosion of trust in foundational institutions: science, education, and even history. We see people in the medical profession who are anti-vaxxers - a contradiction as absurd as an astronomer who believes the Earth is flat. We see a resurgence of people questioning the Holocaust, an event documented by mountains of evidence and confessed to by its perpetrators. They are not separate issues; they are symptoms of the same disease.

I’m sure you’ve seen it too. Maybe it’s that uncle who was always so kind, now sharing inflammatory articles you know he hasn’t read. Or an old friend from school whose feed has become a stream of conspiracy theories. It’s personal and it’s painful. We are losing people not to a virus, but to an information sickness that devours reason and replaces it with suspicion. And I am afraid we have only just begun to see its consequences.

So, where does this leave us? It’s easy to feel powerless against the tide of algorithm-fueled hysteria, but we aren’t. The fight against disinformation is waged on three fronts: the personal, the interpersonal, and the societal.

## On a personal level: Practice information hygiene

The first step is to fortify our own minds. You wouldn’t drink contaminated water, so why consume contaminated information?

- **Make Fact-Checking a Reflex** \- before you share, before you even let an article emotionally sink in, take 30 seconds to vet it. Who wrote it? What is their source? Does a quick search on a neutral search engine bring up similar reports from credible outlets, or does it only exists on fringe websites? Make it a habit, like washing your hands.
- **Curate your feeds ruthlessly** - if a page or person consistently posts sensationalized, biased, or false information, hit unfollow or mute. It’s not about living in a bubble; it’s about refusing to let bad-faith actors pollute your digital space.
- **Beware the AI revolution** - we must now be more skeptical than ever. AI can generate incredibly realistic images, videos, and text at a massive scale. The ironic lesson our parents taught us - “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet” - has never been more critical. The very generation that warned us about online dangers is now often the most vulnerable because the nature of the threat has changed from static trick websites to dynamic, persuasive, AI-powered propaganda.

## On an interpersonal level: How to talk to a loved one

This is the hardest part. When someone you care about is falling down a rabbit hole, your instinct might be to scream facts at them. This almost never works. Aggression triggers defensiveness, and a battle of “my link vs. your link” goes nowhere. Instead, try a more empathetic approach:

- **Ask questions, don’t make accusations** \- instead of saying “How can you believe that garbage?!” try asking questions that encourage them to examine their own thought process. “That’s an interesting take, where did you first hear about it?” or “What was it about that video that you found so convincing?” This can sometimes lead them to their own logical gaps without you forcing the issue.
- **Appeal to shared values, not data** \- don’t argue about mRNA virology. Instead, connect to a value you both share. For example: “I know we both want to keep grandma safe, and from all the doctors I trust, this seems like surest way to do that.” This re-frames the conversation around a shared emotional goal rather than a factual dispute.
- **Know when to stop** - your goal is not to “win” the argument but to be trusted, dissenting voice, a lifeline back to reality. You might not convince them in one conversation, but by remaining calm and empathetic, you keep the door open for them to come to you when doubts eventually arise.

## On a societal level: Holding titans to account

Ultimately, this is not just a problem of individual choices. We are living within an information ecosystem designed by a handful of corporations - Meta, Google, TikTok, and others - that have prioritized engagement over truth.

Their algorithms discovered that fear, anger, and division are phenomenally profitable. They built systems that create the echo chambers we’re trapped in. While they won’t willingly dismantle a machine that generates billions of dollars, we must recognize and name the source of the problem. Real change requires sustained public pressure for transparency, algorithmic accountability, and a business model for the internet that doesn’t treat our sanity as resource to be mined.

Of course expecting them to self-regulate is like hoping a casino will ask you to stop gambling. It’s a pipe dream. But one can still dream, and more importantly, one can still demand better.
