Like the virus, the hashtag #nomorelockdowns has spread across borders, taking root in India, the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, where its use has intensified.
Don Garfat was frustrated by the impact the pandemic was having on his community.
The forced closing of businesses and tight restrictions on church services seemed particularly unfair.
It was the spring of 2020, and the storm of pandemic news and information was bewildering. Garfat didn’t know how to express his frustration.
In Renfrew County, an hour west of Ottawa, he cuts trees in summer and shovels snow in winter, he said. He homeschools his son and daughter. He leans on his faith in Jesus. He was not politically active, not a protester.
Then he found No More Lockdowns on Facebook.
Garfat became one of tens of thousands of Canadians who have visited flourishing anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine online communities inhabited by people from all walks of life.
These digital spaces, using hashtags like #nomorelockdowns as a signal flare to attract new followers, have grown rapidly by providing common ground for believers in a kaleidoscope of conspiracy theories and pushing claims that the pandemic is an elaborate hoax to undermine liberty and that vaccines threaten human health.
Under this big tent, anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown and anti-mask groups have become all but indistinguishable. Some, like No More Lockdowns, now claim to be in a “cultural battle for the future of our country.”
A Torstar investigation of this digital universe has tracked its spread from social media to real-world protests in defiance of public health orders. Some social media groups have memberships in the tens of thousands. Some participants organize protests at vaccine clinics. One anti-lockdown Facebook group urged members to sneak inside hospitals to make videos they hoped would prove the health-care system was not overwhelmed by COVID-19.
Public health officials worry the movement threatens efforts to end the pandemic. If the anti-vaccine movement can convince even a small percentage of Canadians to forego immunization, COVID-19 will continue to spread. That cluster of unsure Canadians — sometimes called the vaccine-hesitant — are caught in a tug of war between public health authorities and anti-vaxxers.
It was in this sprawling community that Garfat discovered answers and fellowship.
“It’s nice to know you’re not alone, that you’re not the only one that is against lockdowns,” he said.
Inspired, Garfat found a large weathered wooden billboard along a quiet stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway between the Noah’s Ark-themed Logos Land motel and Haley Station. On it he displayed a silhouette of a man in jail above white block letters that say “No More Lockdowns.” Under it, in black, is the phrase once made famous by Nancy Reagan: “Just Say No.”
It was just one of the more than 55,000 signs the No More Lockdowns organization claims to have sold to date.
“I did what I felt my conscience said was right, what it was telling me to do. I’m not an orator. But I could do this. I could put it up,” said Garfat.
His devotion to the cause was praised on the official No More Lockdowns Twitter account, which called Garfat a “freedom lover,” and signified the comment with the hashtag #nomorelockdowns.
Garfat had gone looking for answers. What he found was a movement.
How the Twitter hashtag #nomorelockdowns grew in different countries
Like the novel coronavirus itself, the hashtag #nomorelockdowns has spread across borders and oceans, taking root in India, Nepal, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
Hashtags, a frequent feature of social media posts to signify what a message is about, are used by politicians, musicians, activists and others to build audiences.
#Nomorelockdowns has been among the most pervasive social media flags that helped stitch together, among others, movements from disparate communities: QAnon conspiracy theorists; denizens of the Christian and conservative right; and adherents of the often pseudo-scientific wellness industry.
Torstar tracked the dissemination and evolution of #nomorelockdowns and other anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine hashtags. Torstar collected every original tweet that used the hashtag from January 2020 to early June 2021, and analyzed its content to identify what country the Twitter user was writing about. There was no discernable country in about 30 per cent of the 27,000 tweets examined.
The analysis found the use of #nomorelockdowns intensified once it became a fixture of anti-lockdown social media rhetoric in Ontario, often accompanied by more generic hashtags about Canadian politics including #cdnpoli and #ontpoli.
While the hashtag was sporadically used in the early months of the pandemic, its first use by a prominent Canadian figure came in October 2020. Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston independent Ontario MPP Randy Hillier included #nomorelockdowns when sharing a video of anti-lockdown protests in Toronto.
In the months that followed, Hillier, the de facto leader of No More Lockdowns with folk-hero-like status among believers, routinely tacked the hashtag on to his messages to his more than 38,000 Twitter followers.
It did not take long for #nomorelockdowns to catch on. By the end of 2020, there were more than 3,100 original tweets related to Canada that used the hashtag.
Since the beginning of 2021, there have been another 6,400 tweets — more than any other country.
The hashtag’s use in tweets related to Canada surged in April and May, coinciding with large anti-lockdown rallies across the country.
The growth of #nomorelockdowns
Torstar’s analysis only captures a glimpse of the online, anti-lockdown conversations in Canada. The analysis does not include the number of times a tweet has been shared, placing the message before thousands of more eyes.
There are other hashtags used alongside #nomorelockdowns, variants of sorts that are often more openly conspiratorial in tone. The hashtag #wearelivingalie first appeared in tweets about another country, emerging in the United States during the fractious partisan aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
When it crossed the 49th parallel, Hillier was again a key vector for its spread. On Dec. 18, he tweeted in defence of a handful of doctors who were “speaking out against the lie.”
On April 1, 2021, Hillier tweeted out a photo of Adolf Hitler at a Nuremberg rally and claimed pandemic restrictions are tyrannical. It was shared more than 1,400 times. Of those, 657 were harsh criticisms of Hillier’s reference to the Nazis. But it was also shared another 825 times without comment. The tweet was liked 2,180 times.
“The Third ….wave. Everyone who has ever been to the sea, knows there is no end to waves. It’s only 28 days this time. Truth does not mind being questioned. Lies do not like to be challenged. #onpoli #WeAreLivingaLie #nomorelockdowns,” wrote Hillier.
Two days later, Hillier fired back at his critics on Twitter, implying those who did not like his message were in favour of tyranny. It was liked more than 1,000 times.
Hillier told Torstar he did not know about the origins of the hashtags. Rather, he was looking for “a message that was easy for people to understand, that was easy to communicate, so that’s the term that I ended up at.”
That the Canadian movements borrow ideas from other countries comes as no surprise to those watching their evolution around the world.
Most of the core anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine messages globally originate from only 12 social media influencers, according to the U.K.-based Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The CCDH calls them “The Disinformation Dozen,” largely American social media influencers, among them anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr, dietary supplement salesman Joseph Mercola, and popular osteopath Sherri Tenpenny.
They are the “Kim Kardashians of the anti-vaccine market,” said CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed. “This is an American disease and the influence, the super spreaders globally are primarily American.”
The key messages by Canadian anti-vaxxers on social media — ranging from the debunked claim that vitamins will protect against COVID-19 to ideas that vaccines are unnatural and dangerous — are mirror images of messages created by the Disinformation Dozen.
Anita Sutcliffe is a personal support worker who worries that death may arrive at the tip of a vaccine needle.
The retirement home she works for saw four of its residents die in the spring from COVID-19 before they could be fully vaccinated.
In the friendly confines of the End the Lockdowns Niagara chat room on Telegram — a social media site that allows for the creation of encrypted, invitation-only channels — she claimed the retirement home had been able to resist the ravages of the novel coronavirus until the vaccines arrived.
“We lost vaccine-hesitant residents after the 1st injection. They received their 2nd injection on May 1st. Could be devastating,” wrote Sutcliffe of Shorthills Villa Retirement Community in the small town of Fonthill, north of Welland.
Sheltered from authorities and the risk of being banned from Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, private groups or encrypted channels like Telegram also grow the anti-vaccination movement by sharing ideas and facilitating the planning of events — including those that eventually carry the #nomorelockdowns hashtag — before they become public knowledge.
Torstar monitored some of these groups and channels for several months. False information about vaccines and pandemic restrictions are shared daily, including claims that vaccinated people shed toxic particles that turn the non-vaccinated into living magnets, that doctors and journalists will be tried and executed for war crimes, and that vaccines are lethal.
While adverse reactions to vaccines are real, if rare, they are grossly exaggerated on these channels, with unverified testimonials taken as gospel.
The AstraZeneca vaccine carries with it a 1-in-50,000 chance of rare blood clots after the first dose. Of the more than 2.1 million doses of AstraZeneca administered in Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada said 55 cases of serious blood clots have been detected and six people have died.
Sutcliffe appears to have turned to Telegram after Shorthills general manager Zaid Hassani, concerned anti-vaccination propaganda will impede efforts to protect residents, told her to stop pushing her rhetoric at work, Hassani said.
“Of course no one is speaking up. Mostly sheeple there,” wrote Sutcliffe, who spent half of May off-duty because she refused to be tested for COVID-19.
Hassani said the deadly outbreak happened in April after the home had brought in part-time PSWs who also worked at other homes. One of them likely carried the virus into Shorthills, infecting 37 of the 50 people who live there.
The vaccination of residents had started, but first doses only provide partial protection against COVID-19, and not enough time had passed for that dose to reach its maximum efficacy.
“I pretty much grew up with some of these residents since I was little, I’ve known them,” Hassani said. “I was kind of worried that this whole anti-vax movement would have more of an impact. And that really worried me because a lot of the people that are consuming that sort of information are people who have family inside retirement homes.”
Hassani said Sutcliffe has been barred from the residence and they are still determining what disciplinary action she will face. He said Sutcliffe was not fired because “we could not come to an agreement with the union.” Sutcliffe has also been given educational materials about vaccines.
Sutcliffe is not the only health-care worker in Ontario to come under scrutiny for views on vaccines.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has reviewed complaints about doctors who have allegedly pushed disinformation about the pandemic and vaccines on social media. Dr. Patrick Phillips is under investigation for social media posts claiming vaccines are killing people and pushing vitamin D as a COVID-19 treatment.
As of the publication of this story, Dr. Phillips, who works in an emergency room in Kirkland Lake, Ont., has not been disciplined by the CPSO. But on June 25, Phillips — who did not respond to a request for an interview from Torstar — tweeted that he will likely lose his job and will ask the public for financial support.
Sutcliffe declined to discuss the claims she made in the Telegram chat room about vaccines at Shorthills, saying in an email she cannot “come forward publicly with information which was discussed amongst us in a members-only group,” and that “I cannot provide sensitive details and breach confidentiality nor jeopardize my livelihood, as I am a single mother and sole provider for my family.”
On a brisk November afternoon, hundreds of anti-vaccine protesters gathered outside Toronto City Hall to push back against mandatory public health measures.
“Stop the slaughter of the innocents,” blared one sign, echoing the protesters’ claims that vaccines were unsafe experiments that would mutilate children and were taking away the right of people to make their own health-care decisions.
It was 1919.
That year the Anti-Vaccination League — an early 20th-century counterpart to No More Lockdowns — had organized the event to oppose a mandatory smallpox vaccination order issued by the city after an outbreak.
“There have always been these people, ever since the idea of vaccination was introduced, who were hesitant or skeptical about it or had negative things to say about it,” said Jonathan Berman, physiologist, historian and author of “Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement.”
The early anti-vaccination movement originated in England, Berman said. The first Toronto Anti-Vaccination League was formed in 1900, according to Toronto historian Jamie Bradburn.
Fear of vaccines and a loss of personal liberty, no matter the century, has always driven the spread of these movements, Berman said.
While current anti-vaccine rhetoric is often a reformulation of older claims — vaccines “mutilating children” in 1919 now appears as mRNA vaccines being experimental “gene therapy” — modern misinformation campaigns have a potent weapon in the internet.
“There are situations that attract people to conspiracy theories. We are in one of them right now,” said Timothy Caulfield, a Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, who has studied the rise and spread of conspiracy theories. “Where there is uncertainty, where there’s fear, where people are looking for answers, conspiracy theories can also become more attractive. And the other thing the conspiracy theories offer is a complete narrative for reality.”
It is a resilient narrative unconstrained by evidence, something Caulfield saw in his study on the social media debate around the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment — an idea that gained steam when promoted by then-president Donald Trump.
While clinical trials show the drug does not prevent or treat COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine remains a potent symbol of freedom of choice.
“We were surprised with the degree to which it was almost entirely an ideological discussion,” Caulfield said. “It was about Trump. It was about freedom. You know, it wasn’t about what the evidence says about hydroxychloroquine.”
The ideologies at the heart of the anti-vaccine community are a big tent, allowing for distinct conspiracy theory communities with common values — that include fears of government overreach, a high value placed on unrestricted liberty and a distrust of experts and media — to come together in what Caulfield calls “clusters of belief.”
Trump flags, banners of the right-wing 1776 movement — named after the year of the American Revolution — and the yellow “don’t tread on me” flag, all ubiquitous during the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, are sometimes flown at Canadian rallies alongside No More Lockdown flags or signs claiming vaccines are linked to 5G networks or that the pandemic is a plot by Bill Gates.
Believers in QAnon — a sprawling American conspiracy theory about, among other things, an international cabal of satanic, pedophile sex traffickers trying to undermine democracy — are regulars at anti-lockdown rallies in Canada. Even alternative medicine and new age believers, part of what Caulfield and Berman call “the wellness” or “conspirituality” community, are part of the movement, often pushing vitamins and other non-medical cures for COVID-19.
In this ideological stew, participants can be exposed to more radical, even more dangerous ideas, said Ahmed from the CCDH.
“What (US legislators) have realized is what they saw as being a bit of online fun actually has an offline cost,” said Ahmed.
Those vulnerable to extremist rhetoric online might spread the virus, which could kill someone, or “they might go and buy an outfit and storm the Capitol,” he said.
When an organizer of a large April 10 anti-lockdown protest in St. Catharines, Ont., said lockdowns and vaccines are part of a “satanic agenda,” it may have spoken to both QAnon believers and those on the Christian right.
The online calls to action are influential enough to motivate people like Garfat to step toward the big tent, participate in the flow of ideas and attend large rallies. In May, Garfat went to Toronto to attend one of the nation’s largest anti-lockdown protests.
The adherents of these overlapping ideologies don’t always get along, however.
In July, Hillier began feuding with Christopher Saccoccia, AKA “Chris Sky” — the anti-vaxxer folk hero who has recently been charged for allegedly making a death threat against Premier Doug Ford.
Saccoccia is not the only member of the community under police investigation. The Niagara Regional Police are currently investigating at least two death threats made against St. Catharines Liberal MP Chris Bittle. He said threats were made after he tweeted encouragement to residents to get vaccinated. Medical officers of health across the country have reported consistent incidents of harassment and death threats.
During the crests of the COVID-19 waves, emergency rooms filled with those whose lungs were failing.
ICUs in some communities were so full, patients were hopscotched to hospitals that still had room. Regular services were shut down, delaying surgeries.
At the height of the third wave, more than 2,200 Ontarians were hospitalized with the virus, with more than 825 of them in ICUs.
But according to Randy Hillier, there was no crisis.
Hillier claims hospitals were never overwhelmed. He often tweets about what he claims is a government and media-fueled lie about how COVID-19 impacted hospitals.
His tweets are liked a thousand times or more. An April 15 tweet, which featured a video of an empty hospital hallway in Barrie — similar to the videos made by the members of the 6,000 member strong Film Your Hospital Facebook group — was presented by Hillier as evidence the pandemic was a fraud.
In the world according to Hiller, the pandemic is not about a virus. It is tyranny and the end of freedom.
“That’s not being hyperbolic. I say that with complete sincerity,” said Hillier. “When the government can tell you how many people that can be in your house, and that it would be unlawful to have more than five people in your house … your mobility is determined by the state. What part of that is not consistent with an authoritarian government or with communism?”
A former Progressive Conservative Party leadership hopeful described in his hometown newspaper as “Don Cherry in plaid and rubber boots,” Hillier said the provincial government’s lack of a pandemic “exit plan” and the deleterious impacts of lockdowns on the economy and peoples’ lives spurred him to launch his protest movement in October.
His anti-lockdown rhetoric has transmuted to include broader COVID conspiracies. He uses his Twitter page to broadcast unverified claims of people harmed by the vaccine. A June 21 tweet cited a post by Dr. Phillips and said, “the risk from the vaccine is far greater than the virus for many people. #onpoli #wearelivingalie.” The message was retweeted 407 times and liked by 983 users.
Hillier has not been acting alone. He had the support of a cadre of Christian pastors who were not just participants in the anti-lockdown big tent. They were key players helping it expand its spread online and in the real world.
In September, claiming Christians are being persecuted by the press, the government and the courts, the group of pastors signed “The Niagara Declaration 2020.” Citing pandemic lockdowns, moves to ban conversion therapy and other grievances, the declaration says there is to be “no interference from civil authorities in the spiritual matters of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
The declaration springboarded the formation of The Liberty Coalition, a religious anti-lockdown group akin to politically active evangelical organizations in the United States.
Michael Thiessen, pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Alliston, Ont., a leader of the group and author of the declaration, said that while No More Lockdowns and the coalition share goals, they are separate organizations.
However, they have acted in concert for months. No More Lockdowns joined Twitter on Jan. 12, followed by the Liberty Coalition three days later. Less than a month after the first tweets by the organizations, both using #nomorelockdowns, the coalition sponsored the End the Lockdowns Caucus.
That caucus, led by Hillier, brought together politicians opposed to lockdowns, including People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier, Hastings—Lennox and Addington MP Derek Sloan, who voted against banning conversion therapy, and Christian Heritage Party national leader Rod Taylor.
Collectively they have become the political leadership of the movement and are treated like rock stars at rallies.
The politicians have stood alongside Thiessen at rallies, with Bernier declaring on July 6 they have “come together under the Liberty Coalition of Canada.”
Crosses and “Trust the Lord, not Doug Ford” signs appear alongside flags and signs of other communities in the movement.
This alliance is no longer limiting itself to attacking lockdowns. Aside from engaging in cultural wars, the coalition is actively campaigning for donations to fund its expansion.
Ending the threat of COVID-19 means getting needles into enough arms so the virus cannot effectively spread anymore.
Reaching this herd immunity for highly contagious diseases like measles requires vaccinating more than 95 per cent of the population.
For COVID-19, the target is as high as 89 per cent — or higher to combat more infectious variants — according to Public Health Ontario. And that is where the math becomes problematic.
“Right now, we aren’t immunizing around 11 per cent of the population because we are not vaccinating children under 12 yet,” said Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health. “So right away, the maximum number of people we can get is 89 per cent.”
A mid-June poll by the Angus Reid Institute showed that a full nine per cent of adult Canadians say they won’t get vaccinated, and another seven per cent is either unsure or is going to wait.
As of July 16, less than 44 per cent of Canadians were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Canada is unlikely to reach herd immunity, Hirji predicts.
Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec have tried to incentivize vaccination with lotteries. But those looking hard at the issue say the reasons behind hesitancy are complex, as are the anti-vaccination messages.
Movement adherents like Don Garfat — who would not say if he will get vaccinated — believe vitamins and staying healthy will ward off COVID-19. Medical experts say this will not prevent infection or serious illness, but that does not impact the belief, which is often shared in the movement’s social media posts.
“The hesitant are trying to find a lot of information. And by doing so, they can encounter some pretty well designed anti-vaccine stuff online,” said Ève Dubé, a medical anthropologist at the National Institute of Public Health in Quebec. “They are quite good in packaging their information and taking a bit of science and then a bit of nonscience to send a message that could be quite convincing if you’re already not too sure about vaccination.”
Distrust is the nemesis of herd immunity, one health officials are not doing enough to combat, said Angus Thomson, senior social scientist for the demand for immunization program at UNICEF.
“We are investing billions and billions of dollars to purchase and distribute COVID-19 vaccines to over 100 countries around the world. And we are investing a fraction of a fraction of a per cent in building public trust for those incoming vaccination programs ahead of time,” said Thomson. “There’s no public immunity without public trust and we’ve taken it for granted because people just lined up. And for the last 30 years we’ve been running on goodwill and luck. And now we’re seeing very clearly the impact of that failure to invest in communication.”
In the wake of that failure, tensions around vaccinations are growing. U.S. President Joe Biden criticized Facebook for allowing vaccine disinformation on its platforms. Arsonists have attacked a vaccine clinic in France. A new round of large anti-vaccine protests in Canada are being planned for this weekend. Ontario’s chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore said 83 per cent of recent COVID-19 cases are among those who have not got their shots.
And anti-vaccine disinformation is pumped out consistently on social media even as efforts to expand vaccinations continue.
In response to news about the virus spreading among unvaccinated people, No More Lockdowns tweeted on July 6 that it was “equally plausible” that vaccinated people are also vectors for the virus to mutate.
The tweet used #wearelivingalie.
Article From: The Star
Author: By Grant LaFlecheStandard Reporter; Edward TianSpecial to the Star
