Social media heavyweights wooed for vaccine smear campaign

A file photo of a woman receiving Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, west of Paris. Social media influencers in France with hundreds of thousands of followers say a mysterious advertising agency offered to pay them if they agreed to smear Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine with negative fake stories. The smear effort drew a withering response from Veran, who called it ‘pathetic’. — AP

LE PECQ, France: Social media influencers in France with hundreds of thousands of followers say a mysterious advertising agency offered to pay them if they agreed to smear Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine with negative fake stories.

French YouTuber Léo Grasset was among those contacted. He said Tuesday that he was offered a potentially lucrative but also hush-hush deal to make bogus claims that Pfizer’s vaccine poses a deadly risk and that regulators and mainstream media are covering up the supposed dangers.