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 Home page in January 2023 | |
| Available in | English |
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| Founder(s) | Toby Young |
| URL | dailysceptic |
| This article is part of a series on |
| Conservatism in the United Kingdom |
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The Daily Sceptic is a blog created by British commentator Toby Young. It has published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines [9] and engaged in climate change denial. [16]
Young founded The Daily Sceptic as a successor to his previous blog Lockdown Sceptics, which was set up in April 2020. [17] He serves as the website's editor-in-chief. [18]
The blog is published by the company Skeptics Ltd; Noah Carl, Luke Oliver Johnson and Toby Young are its directors. [19]
In April 2024, naturalist Chris Packham referred to the blog as the "Daily Septic" in an appearance on BBC One and said it was "basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry." Young called Packham's claim "both false and defamatory". [20]
In October 2021, The Daily Sceptic published an article suggesting that Office for National Statistics (ONS) data showing an increase in the number of teenage deaths between June and September 2021 was connected to the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the United Kingdom. The ONS confirmed that the figures were accurate, but added that there was no evidence to link the increase in deaths to the COVID-19 vaccines. [1]
In November 2021, The Daily Sceptic used data published in a UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) report to claim that 71% of adults hospitalised with COVID-19 were vaccinated. The disinformation analysis organisation Logically noted that the complete UKHSA report cautioned against using the raw data to estimate vaccine effectiveness due to it not taking inherent biases such as "differences in risk, behaviour and testing" into account. [2]
In September 2022, The Daily Sceptic reported on a declaration by a group of scientists and doctors claiming that the COVID-19 vaccines were causing an "international medical crisis". The fact-checking website Health Feedback noted that The Daily Sceptic did not acknowledge that the claims made in the declaration had previously been fact-checked and found to be inaccurate, unsupported or misleading. [3]
Also in September 2022, PayPal shut down the accounts of Young, the Free Speech Union and The Daily Sceptic. The accounts were closed because of breaches of PayPal's acceptable use policy, thought to be because of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. [21] The accounts were restored later that month after extensive criticism of PayPal's actions by MPs. [22]
In December 2022, The Daily Sceptic claimed that a study published in the Clinical Research in Cardiology journal showed that people who had "died suddenly" were likely killed by the COVID-19 vaccines. The article was widely shared on social media, due to the phrase "died suddenly" being associated with an anti-vaccine film of the same name. Experts consulted by Health Feedback found that the claim was not supported by the study's actual findings. [7] [8]
In August 2022, a Daily Sceptic article claimed that the World Climate Declaration had "dealt a savage blow" to the idea that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for climate change, and argued that global warming may instead be a natural event. [23] Climate Feedback and Euronews noted that most of the document's signatories were not climate scientists and included personalities with ties to fossil fuel interests, and that experts in the field of climatology had concluded that human greenhouse gas emissions are predominantly responsible for climate change. [11] [24] [14] A March 2023 report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that The Daily Sceptic article was the fourth most-shared URL from among 32 climate-denying websites on Twitter between 1 January 2022 and 1 March 2023. [14]
In October 2022, a Daily Sceptic article said that studies in Greenland showed that climate change is caused by natural factors rather than carbon emissions. The scientists behind said studies told Agence France-Presse that The Daily Sceptic had misrepresented their findings, and that the impact of fossil fuels on global warming was well-documented. [12]
A January 2023 Daily Sceptic article cited a sentence from the abstract of a 2020 study published in Nature that noted a lack of rising temperatures in Antarctica despite rising levels of carbon dioxide, claiming it proved that human-driven climate change is an "unproven hypothesis". The paper's co-author, Hansi Singh of the University of Victoria in Canada, told PolitiFact that the abstract had been taken out of context. She noted that the point of the paper was to show that Antarctica experienced significantly less warming than the global average between 1950 and 2014. The article was shared by American political commentator Dinesh D'Souza in April. [25]
A May 2023 Daily Sceptic article claimed that underwater volcanoes could cause global warming which is otherwise attributed to human activities, and that climate models do not take volcanic activity into consideration. Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz, a professor of geology and climate change at Aarhus University in Denmark, called The Daily Sceptic's article an example of "alternative facts". She explained that climate models do account for volcanic activity, and that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by human activity is 60 times higher than the amount produced by volcanoes. [15]
Steven Todd Kirsch is an American entrepreneur. He has started several companies and was one of two people who independently invented the first version of the optical mouse. Kirsch has been both a philanthropic supporter of medical research, and a promoter of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
Toby Daniel Moorsom Young is a British social commentator. He is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union, an associate editor of The Spectator, creator of The Daily Sceptic blog and a former associate editor at Quillette.
Vernon Edward Coleman is an English conspiracy theorist and writer, who writes on topics related to human health, politics and animal welfare. He was formerly a general practitioner (GP) and newspaper columnist. Coleman's medical claims have been widely discredited and described as pseudoscientific conspiracy theories.
The Daily Wire is an American conservative media company founded in 2015 by political commentator Ben Shapiro and film director Jeremy Boreing. The company is a major publisher on Facebook, and produces podcasts such as The Ben Shapiro Show. The Daily Wire has also produced various films and video series. Its DailyWire+ video on demand platform launched in 2022, and its children's video platform Bentkey in 2023. The Daily Wire is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
LifeSiteNews is a Canadian Catholic conservative anti-abortion advocacy website and news publication. LifeSiteNews has published misleading information and conspiracy theories, and in 2021, was banned from some social media platforms for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messaging, and mass media. False information has been propagated by celebrities, politicians, and other prominent public figures. Many countries have passed laws against "fake news", and thousands of people have been arrested for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The spread of COVID-19 misinformation by governments has also been significant.
Plandemic is a trilogy of conspiracy theory films produced by Mikki Willis, promoting misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. They feature Judy Mikovits, a discredited American researcher and prominent anti-vaccine activist. The first video, Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19, was released on May 4, 2020, under Willis' production company Elevate Films. The second film, Plandemic Indoctornation, which includes more interviewees, was released on August 18 by Brian Rose's distributor of conspiracy theory related films, London Real. Later on June 3, 2023, Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening was released on The Highwire, a website devoted to conspiracy theories run by anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree.
Michael Yeadon is a British anti-vaccine activist and retired pharmacologist who attracted media attention in 2020 and 2021 for making false or unfounded claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. The Times has described him as "a hero of Covid conspiracy theorists" and "a key figure in the antivax movement". Until 2011, he served as the chief scientist and vice-president of the allergy and respiratory research division of the drug company Pfizer, and is the co-founder and former CEO of the biotechnology company Ziarco.
Peter Andrew McCullough is an American cardiologist. He was vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University. From the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullough has promoted misinformation about COVID-19, its treatments, and mRNA vaccines.
Robert Wallace Malone is an American physician and biochemist. His early work focused on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Malone promoted misinformation about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
National File is an American right-wing blog and news website created by Alex Jones in August 2019. It is known for publishing false or misleading claims about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines.
John Lorimer Campbell is an English YouTuber and retired nurse educator known for his videos about the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the videos received praise, but they later diverged into COVID-19 misinformation. He has been criticised for suggesting COVID-19 deaths have been over-counted, repeating false claims about the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, and providing misleading commentary about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. As of March 2024, his YouTube channel had 3 million subscribers and over 750 million views.
This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.
The Health Advisory and Recovery Team is a British pressure group opposed to COVID-19 mitigation measures and COVID-19 vaccines.
The Exposé is a British conspiracist and fake news website created in 2020 by Jonathan Allen-Walker. It is known for publishing COVID-19 and anti-vaccine misinformation.
The World Council for Health is a pseudo-medical organisation dedicated to spreading misinformation to discourage COVID-19 vaccination, and promoting fake COVID-19 treatments.
Disclose.tv is a disinformation outlet based in Germany that presents itself as a news aggregator. It is known for promoting conspiracy theories and fake news, including COVID-19 misinformation and anti-vaccine narratives.
Died Suddenly is a 2022 American anti-vaccination film directed by Matthew Skow and executive-produced by Stew Peters, a far-right and alt-right anti-vaccine activist. It promotes false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and Great Reset conspiracy theories. The film was released on Rumble and Twitter on November 21, 2022.
Leading Report is an American website and Twitter account that describes itself as a "leading source for breaking news". It is known for promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories, including about United States politics and COVID-19.
The Daily Sceptic article states that the increased number of deaths corresponded with the timing of the roll out of Covid-19 vaccinations among this age group and asks if this is "real-world evidence that over the summer the vaccines killed nine times as many 15-19 year-olds as Covid did?" ... There is also no evidence that this is caused by Covid-19 vaccines.
The Daily Sceptic, a website that often propagates COVID-19 misinformation, has published a misleading article regarding vaccine effectiveness.
Outlets like One American News Network (OAN) and Daily Sceptic ... reported on the declaration. Neither outlet acknowledged that the claims made in the declaration were previously fact-checked and found to be inaccurate, unsupported or misleading.
Social media users are sharing an online article that claims the "COVID vaccine destroys natural immunity" and creates "negative immunity" based on misinterpretation of a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The misleading headline and link to an article published by the Daily Sceptic has been viewed more than 20,000 times on Facebook ... and has been shared more than 11,000 times on Twitter.
It's not surprising that the usual suspects are amplifying this "study" as slam-dunk evidence that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous and do more harm than good. I surveyed some of the usual suspects, and here's just a little of what I found: ... The Daily Sceptic (a denialist website): Florida Recommends Against mRNA Vaccination for Males Aged 18-39 Due to 84% Increase in Heart Death Risk
An article written by Will Jones for the website The Daily Sceptic, promoting this claim, also went viral through social media posts... Jones, who holds a PhD in political philosophy, asserted that the study meant it was now a "firmly established" fact that COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for sudden deaths. ... However, experts who weren't involved in the study found that such an interpretation isn't substantiated by the work actually done in the study.
