With confused theories the "Corona Committee" stirs up fear of vaccination. Now he wants to be recognized as a non-profit.
How many misinformation, false predictions, NS-relativizations and appeals for donations (for one’s own account) fit into one Youtube broadcast?
Depends on how long it is. The latest episode of the so-called "Corona Committee" lasts five hours and 55 minutes, which is good average for this format, and it’s hard to decide which moments are among the most perfidious this time around.
There’s the expert who warns that unvaccinated people could soon be picked up and put in concentration camps. There would be a threat of a "manhunt," and loving parents might then have to hide their children under the boards of the floor at home to prevent them from being sprayed to death.
There’s the man who claims Israel’s government is currently carrying out a holocaust on its own people ("You can tell by how many people are dying from vaccinations"). A guest explains that in the vaccine against Corona there are "something like living octopuses". No one in the round doubts it.
Youtube allows the channel
While Youtube is now taking more consistent action against misinformation about the Corona virus and has blocked several channels just this week, one of the worst and most popular spreaders of lies has so far gone largely unchallenged. Every week, committee meetings recorded by filmmaker Robert Cibis’ Berlin-based company "Ovalmedia" in an apartment in Moabit can be seen live on Youtube and other streaming platforms. The links are subsequently shared thousands of times by conspiracy believers via Telegram, Whatsapp and Twitter.
In the meetings, the four founders let Corona detractors and anti-vaccination activists from home and abroad have their say for hours on end, and in between there is a constant call to support the committee with donations.
These donations could now increase significantly: Because the Corona Committee insists on non-profit status. This would make monetary donations tax deductible in the future.
On Telegram, the creators have now announced "good news." They had just "learned that there is nothing standing in the way" of the Corona Committee being recognized as a non-profit by the IRS. With that, "a long, tough fight" dissolves into nothingness.
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Central figures of the weekly shows are the lawyer Viviane Fischer, who was known to the public before the pandemic as the Berlin milliner Rike Feurstein, and the conspiracy ideologist Reiner Fuellmich. The latter has just been elected as the candidate for chancellor of the maverick party "Die Basis" failed. After giving his supporters massive hope for weeks and talking about a potential of 30 percent of the votes, the party ended up with only 1.4 percentage points in the federal election.
He defends himself: the Tagesspiegel had made it up
Reiner Fuellmich is already known for spectacular miscalculations. In February, for example, he had prophesied that the vaccine against Corona would directly kill 25 percent of all Germans and cause potentially fatal side effects in another 36 percent; the government was planning an "organized mass killing". For this lie he never apologized to his followers. Instead, Fuellmich meanwhile claims that the Tagesspiegel only made up these statements. However, they are well documented and publicly available.
[Read here at T+: How Reiner Fuellmich promises his followers a claim for damages against Christian Drosten]
In addition to Fuellmich, other conspiracy ideologues have been trying for months to keep people from vaccinating through scare tactics, such as pop singer Michael Wendler. This one circulated a "final warning" on Telegram just recently. It read: "In September, almost all vaccinated dead." An explanation why the prediction did not come true, Michael Wendler has none.
Why are the vaccinated still alive?
But instead, the man who is a guest this Friday at the Berlin Corona Committee. His explanation is a vivid example of how conspiracy believers lose themselves deeper and deeper in their fantasy world, always inventing even more bizarre claims in order to avoid having to acknowledge the obvious reality – their own being wrong:
The guest explains that the vaccine against Corona is undoubtedly murderous and is used by the government to systematically kill the population. But so that this evil plan would not be immediately noticed, the poison would first be injected only into a part of those who wanted to be vaccinated. The majority, on the other hand, are first injected with placebos, i.e. a completely ineffective substance, which also does not protect against Corona, but also does not reveal the mass killing plan. The lethal dose should then be administered later during booster vaccinations, she said.
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No one on the show even thinks of questioning this nonsense. On the contrary, the supposed expert is praised. The Coronaverharmloser Wolfgang Wodarg, even permanent guest of the committee, comes to the conclusion: "He has seen through it."
In the meantime, the scene itself is puzzled why Youtube, of all places, has not yet blocked the channel of the Berlin Corona Committee. Other actors have already felt the platform’s more consistent approach. The film company "Ovalmedia" for example, which broadcasts the committee, has already received several warnings for its own Youtube channel. In addition the people bank Ovalmedia announced the company account.
Completely blocked the Youtube channels of KenFM and Nuoviso, both had massively spread conspiracy myths.
Paul Brandenburg, a doctor and activist, is also affected. After repeatedly accusing the German government of "fascism" most recently, calling Markus Soder a "fascist" on Twitter, raging against an alleged "Merkel fascism" and calling on his followers to "finally take off all your masks" to take off, he also claimed that "from a medical point of view, there has never been a corona pandemic in Germany". For the latter statement he was blocked for a week by the short message service.
A doctor explains how to forge vaccination cards
Later, Paul Brandenburg distributed a video via Twitter in which he explained in detail how a vaccination certificate can be falsified ("Falsifying a vaccination certificate: It’s that easy"). Twitter responded with another block. Youtube deleted the video. Another Brandenburg video deleted Youtube because of "cyberbullying".
Paul Brandenburg recognizes in the measures of the two platforms a "fascist spirit".
[Fight against the Corona pandemic – always a topic in the district people newsletters from the Tagesspiegel, quite uncomplicated and free order at leute.tagesspiegel.en]
Meanwhile, the Berlin Corona Committee is taking precautions in case you do end up in Youtube’s sights yourself. In the future, they would like to additionally operate via the darknet. The followers are already asked to download the appropriate browser.