The Congressman Who Grilled Mark Zuckerberg About Vaccines Is Sharing Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theories on Facebook

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the House Financial Services Committee to allay concerns about Libra, the cryptocurrency that the company hopes to launch as a global payments system. However, many members of Congress clearly had other axes to grind with the tech giant, pushing Zuckerberg on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, child exploitation on the platform, and election interference. One of the most bizarre digressions during the hearing, though, had to do with vaccines. Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida Republican, used his five minutes to implore Zuckerberg to allow vaccine critics to air their opinions on Facebook in light of the CEO’s recent proclamations about free speech on the platform. A clip of the exchange is below:

Link to tweet

Though Posey has insisted that he is “pro-vaccine,” he has a history of promoting the anti-vaccine movement. He’s been supportive of prominent anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and peddled conspiracy theories that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to cover up studies proving a link between vaccines and autism. He’s misrepresented the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund, a popular hobby horse among vaccine conspiracy theorists, insisting that its payments to people who claim to have been harmed by vaccines proves that they’re dangerous. (Around 70 percent of the payments were for cases in which the government did not conclude that there was any actual vaccine harm.) What’s more, Posey has repeatedly promoted these vaccine conspiracy theories on his Facebook pages.

Slate found more than two dozen posts on Posey’s congressional, public figure, and campaign pages promoting vaccine skepticism and misinformation. In fact, Posey’s official page shared a post while the hearing was still in session that applauded him for challenging Zuckerberg and pushed the theory about the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund. In other cases, Posey has shared links to websites that falsely establish a relationship between autism and vaccines, such as Age of Autism and Truth in Media, and pages for anti-vax organizations such as the Children’s Health Defense and Texans for Vaccine Choice.* The congressman also posted a link to a petition pressing Congress to hold hearings on “CDC Fraudulent Pediatric Vaccine Research” and shared news that Robert De Niro had defended the screening of an anti-vax documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival with a caption that further pushes the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund conspiracy theory. (Posey did not post that De Niro eventually decided to pull the documentary from the festival.) He advertised the documentary in another post. Posey also, at times, shares YouTube links to speeches he’s given on vaccines in Congress, and pictures featuring antivax figures with hashtags like #TheTruthAboutVaccines.

...https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/mark-zuckerberg-bill-posey-vaccines-facebook.html