Photo via u/drewcareysglasses/Reddit
August 27, 2021, 10:18 am
A subreddit on the internet’s largest message board platform is getting flooded with memes and scientific information after the Reddit company again said that they will not be making any efforts to combat the spread of dangerous COVID-related misinformation on their website. The subreddit in question is dedicated to promoting and helping people find Ivermectin, the anti-parasite drug often prescribed for horses as a dewormer that is being touted by anti-vaxxers as a viable alternative for protection against COVID-19.
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It’s not, and now people are once again flooding Poison Control after intentionally taking weird drugs without the advice of doctors, often failing to realize that a dose for a horse might not be appropriate for a much small animal.
Ivermectin, when sold for the purpose of deworming horses, often comes in the form of a paste to make it easier to administer to these animals — hence the meme reading “some of those that work forces want the paste that’s for horses,” referencing a popular Rage Against the Machine song.
The obsession with Ivermectin among anti-vaxxers has led to an explosion of hilarious but also kind of sad examples of people literally pooping their pants in public because it didn’t occur to them that a dewormer is going to cause massive diarrhea. Others have been hospitalized, taking up yet more beds, because of horse dewormer overdose.
The COVID-19 vaccine, for the record, does not list “dropping a load in your pants in the grocery store” among its potential side effects.
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Reddit has become a hotbed of misinformation around COVID-19 as the company has repeatedly declined to ban subreddits dedicated to this, resulting in a large group of its more responsible users to publish an open letter on the platform demanding that the company do something.
“There is a good chance that the disinformation that reddit is currently inundated with will necessitate people a stay at the toxicology department in the hospital or even cost them their lives,” the letter reads. “There can be no room for leniency when people are dying as a result of misinformation on this platform. Reddit as a global platform needs to take responsibility here.”
In the meantime, Reddit users are taking matters into their own hands, posting memes and studies that anti-vaxxers don’t like en masse in order to try and drown out dangerous lies and rumors that are making people even sicker in the midst of a global pandemic, with others voting these posts to the top of the feed. The results have been glorious.
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*First Published: August 27, 2021, 10:18 am
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