On Wednesday, The Florida Standard reported on a new study by scientists from, among others, Harvard University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University. The study indicated that the so-called “booster” vaccines would cause significantly more harm than good when pushed on a college student population. Currently, many colleges and universities in the United States require students to be vaccinated and “boosted” in order to participate in education.
The story also reported on the fact that the CDC provided false information regarding their tracking of adverse events from COVID-19 vaccines. It included a link to a letter written by the CDC director, where she confirmed that a causal link exists between COVID vaccines and myocarditis, a serious heart condition.
Shortly after publication, the story went viral on Twitter and Instagram. Our post on Instagram was hidden behind a “false information” wall and had a link that stated “See why fact-checkers say this is false," and as of Friday, has been deleted entirely. When clicking on that link, you were taken to a website that belongs to a company called Lead Stories, and an article that addresses a different news story on the same topic published by a news outlet called The Gateway Pundit. The Florida Standard has no relationship to this publication.
Besides the fact that Lead Stories are confusing us with a completely different website and article, The Florida Standard has investigated the claims made by Lead Stories and how they would apply in relation to our own reporting and find their “fact check” lacking in substance. Lead Stories does not provide any convincing argument that would prompt The Florida Standard to issue any corrections or retractions.
As a matter of principle, The Florida Standard is critical of the “fact checking” trend and how it has manifested since the start of the so-called pandemic. Claims of “fact-checking” and “debunking” has been used by suppression agents to censor and discredit information and reporting critical of the dominant government/media/corporate narratives about COVID and vaccines.
Lead Stories is a member of the #CoronaVirusFactAlliance which in turn is run by the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Florida foundation which is supported by donations from radical activist oligarchs such as Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar and George Soros. The company has a contract where they provide censorship services to Big Tech companies, including Facebook and Google.
On Friday afternoon, our article was completely removed by Instagram.
