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Facebook is a menace. COVID-19 is a menace. Conservatism is a cesspool. Together, those three ingredients have created a toxic stew of malevolent death and devastation. We can talk about all those things in the abstract, look at the numbers and statistics, and catch the occasional whiff of seditionist right-wing rhetoric. But I hadn’t really fully understood just how horrifying that combination of right-wing extremism, Facebook, and a killer virus was until I became a regular at the Herman Cain Awards subreddit. This series will document some of those stories, so we are aware of what the other side is doing to our country.
Today’s cautionary tale is TikToker Amy Briar-Bement, who had over 5,000 followers on that social media platform spewing QAnon and anti-vaxx b.s.
Given that this was a TikTok source, I was going to include links to the original videos. Unfortunately, her account was just made private, making that impossible. But the folks at SorryAntiVaxxer have a compilation video here. It’s tough to watch. Really tough. So click through at your own discretion.
I’m also going to weave this timeline into the video screencaps here, so it all makes more narrative sense.
Mar 29th 2020: Takes 2 weeks off from work because she's afraid of contracting Covid from people who don't cough into their elbows, and she doesn't want to get it and pass it to her sons (the youngest being ~6 yo at the time). Doesn't mind if her 2 weeks off is unpaid leave. Seems sensible, even extra-careful.
Apr 2020 to Aug 2021: Goes to Facebook University and becomes a victim of Covid misinformation. Becomes a radicalized QAnon/Trumptard kook, though not the worst out there.
Aug 26th 2021: Refuses a Rapid-Antigen Test for the 7-yo son, who is sick (most probably with Covid). That's a pre-requisite for entering the clinic she's taken him to, so he probably doesn't get diagnosed/treated and goes home to recover.
Late-Aug/early-Sep 2021: She catches Covid, most probably from the son. The kid will probably be OK, which acts as confirmation bias to her that Covid is not serious, maybe just like a mild 'flu.
Sep 4th 2021: First onset of her symptoms, Day 1 by her calendar - but she may have caught it a bit earlier and been asymptomatic initially.
Sep 11th 2021: Coughing continuously, she presents at the ER on Day 8. A Rapid-Antigen Test shows a false negative. She's allowed in and questioned by the nurse if she's vaccinated and if she has prepared a Living Will. As seen in the video clip above, she dismisses both questions out-of-hand as bullshit.
(She doesn't know it then, and probably neither does the clinic - but this is the last day when she can safely initiate Regeneron antibody infusion that can possibly save her. Beyond Day 10, the EUA for Regeneron does not permit its use for treatment of Covid. It's possible that her insurance doesn't cover Regeneron anyway, and she might not have been willing to pony up ~$3k out-of-pocket for something that's rationed, especially if she had just tested false-negative for Covid. In hindsight, it's a fatal mistake, but the choice wasn't made available to her anyway.)
Now we pick up with screenshots.
“I can’t stop this cough. Severe stomach cramps. My kidneys feel like they’re on fire, feels like I’m being punched in the back. And yes, I’m an anti-vaxxer. I won’t get that damn vaccine.”
Sep 14th 2021: With her cough worsening, she is still a vehement antivaxxer—it's too late anyway for the vaccine, and also for Regeneron on Day 11, but she doesn't know it. Vehement that she won't take the poison (vaccine), whatever happens.
She has COVID, she already feels like crap, like she’s being “punched in the back,” but refuses to let go of the ideology that got her there. She would rather feel like COVID-shit than to have gotten the jab.
Remember, she started by taking time off from work to protect her kids from COVID, and Facebook turned her into this.
She says, “I look like shit, I feel like shit. Something has to give.”
Something had to give, but it wasn’t going to be her ideological opposition to a vaccine that would’ve prevented all of this agony.
The “poison” virus is better than the “poison” vaccine.
Sep 17th 2021: SpO2 level from a pulse oximeter shows 89-91. Gets tested again—the test comes back positive for COVID. Calls the VA ER (she's a veteran? Maybe the late husband) and is asked to call other ERs. They can't give her any medication at this stage at any rate.
She admits that Covid is kicking her ass.
She complains that the local ER won’t take her because they don’t have any beds, and defiantly states that she still wouldn’t take “the shot.”
It was too late for her anyway. You can’t get the shot once you have COVID. But it would’ve served some purpose had she reconsidered the wisdom of the shot at some point. She wonders if he should call an ambulance, to find her a bed somewhere. On Sept. 20, she says “I broke down, I’m finally in an ER.”
Sep 20th 2021: She's finally in the ER on a bunch of IVs. They diagnose pneumonia (ground-glass opacity on chest X-Ray?) and move her to the ICU where she's put on supplemental oxygen for the first time after blacking out twice (not clear if she blacked out at home or at the ER).
She blacked out twice, which she says was “good, because it finally got me in the hospital.”
Sep 21st 2021: She's getting worse, and realizes that her outcome could be fatal for the first time. She has been informed that she will be intubated and on the 'vent if she doesn't improve. She informs her parents and kids and prepares them for caretaking arrangements.
I can’t imagine having that conversation with young children.
In fact, this is the first time she shifts from that defiant “condemn me” formulation, centered on her own selfishness, and acknowledges that her hospitalization is impacting other people.
Sep 22nd 2021: SpO2 is in the 70s, so she's obviously heading downwards. Edit: On BiPap for the first time.
Sep 23rd 2021: Still on BiPap, but feeling slightly better. Asks for PayPal contributions for the kids and bills, in a "worst-case scenario,” "being practical,” etc. Pillow cover is blue.
I hated watching these last videos more than anything. The fear and desperation in her voice is gutting. She may have been originally obnoxious with her “come at me” and “say I deserve it, I don’t care,” but her kids certainly didn’t deserve it. And I don’t think she did either. She was a victim of a massive disinformation campaign, and I wouldn’t wish this fate on my worst enemy.
She had five kids. Four of them living at home. Father had already passed away. The youngest is 8 years old. She said she was trying to be “on the practical side of having kids and bills and everything.” But for the love of god, being on one’s deathbed from an avoidable disease is the last place one wants to begin being “practical”! The time to start was whenever the vaccine became available for her group. And given that she was obese, it would’ve been nearly from the start, in March.
Sep 24th 2021: No video, just a message.
Sep 26th 2021: Miraculously improves, and is removed from the BiPap (mis-states it as bypass). Pillow cover is white. Claims a doctor had a conversation with her in which he said she's taking up an ICU bed that could be better used for a good vaccinated individual. She thinks that the worst is behind her.
Sep 30th 2021: Probably last video, from the ICU while on BiPap again, maybe after a relapse in oxygen levels. Pillow cover is blue, speech is garbled/unintelligible (could somebody post a transcript if possible?). She's clearly in worse shape than the first BiPap on Sep 22nd.
Oct 1st - 21st 2021: No video updates, but obviously in the terminal phase, on the 'vent, in the ICU.
Oct 15th: Another fundraising request from her mom(?) Debbie. This must be in her terminal, possibly intubated, phase.
Oct 21st: Dead - would have been a horrible final 3 weeks.
There was never an acknowledgment that her actions destroyed her family. There was never any effort to turn her tragedy into a teachable moment that might’ve saved some lives down the line. Her obituary didn’t even mention COVID. She simply “gained her Angel wings and joined Jesus in Heaven.”
What a waste. What a tragic, senseless, meaningless waste.
You can watch a compilation of her videos at SorryAntivaxxer.com, if you can stomach it. For whatever reason, her coughing got to me. So visceral.
Remember, she didn’t start out as a rabid anti-vaxxer. She started taking precautions and behaving sensibly to protect her children. Then Facebook came and broke her so deeply, that she lost the fundamental instinct to protect her children against all threats.
Something is deeply broken.
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I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to look at some wildflowers
My nephew died in a car accident several years ago, this song always gets me.
So true. She did NOT have to die. Could have gotten a FREE vaccine. But, because she believed bullsh*t from FB, she is dead and there are now (5) children without a mother or father.
Darwin, sorry I ever doubted you...
She has FIVE children, in case you missed that part. Her genes are doing just fine.
Nope because the Darwin part is that the kids have kids. You can cross a lion and a tiger and get a liger but they are sterile so genes don’t move forward. The proof in the pudding is the eating. Kids have to be able to reproduce or they are f**ked up. Genes don’t care about today, they only care about tomorrow.
She could have had another 5
And now have a better chance of becoming president than non orphans.
Boy, I never did. The evidence is all around us.
She probably also listened to the lying scumbags on Fox News.
All of whom are vaccinated!
….like Trump and Melania.
What was that date that Trump told his rally crowd to “Get the shot” ? And then they all booed him! If she had gotten it the next day she would probably be alive now.
The bullsh*t was on FB, not from FB. Blame FB for not censoring the propagandists if you like, but FB didn’t create or post the propaganda, other people did.
FB aids and abets just like a getaway driver for a shooter or bank robber.
Is an accomplice.
Facebook live streamed Andres Brevik and his record setting massacre so, yeah, they enabled it.
Zuckerberg also makes money from spreading nonsense that kills people. I have to wonder when is enough money enough?
Something has gone very wrong with our society. It is sick…..very sick. It was sick before Covid, but Covid seems to highlight it and show where the defects and cracks are.
You don’t have to be the getaway driver or to even help the crook at all, just riding along in the car and not stopping it makes you guilty.
Zuckerberg’s FB algorithms to promote user engagement by pushing misinformation and extreme content is very profitable and the deaths of its users is an externality Zuckerberg is willing to tolerate.
“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.”
If the dying is profitable, but DOG Zuckerberg requires an occasional human sacrifice to feel loved.
I applaud your Shrek reference….
Collateral damage. The buck is all powerful.
Their algorithm amplified it.
As the recently released whistleblower documents prove.
Zuck makes money by NOT CARING what you watch so long as you spend more time on FB.
The soulless algorithm figures out that conspiracy theory crap "engages" people for longer page views and more messages and more consuming of ads. The system offers a steady stream of propaganda poison to gullible folks and it is no different like the old fashioned pusher who hung around the schoolyard giving "free samples".
Yeah i blame FB. Finally deleted my long dormant account yesterday (that I thought i deleted years ago). It's not much when there's a billion others, but i don't even want to be a blip on their screen.
Facebook created their algorithm. If you can’t seem to assign the blame, you have a big comprehension issue.
Except it was likely FB’s algorithm that fed and continued to feed her propaganda and bullshit while using her data to target others for the same propaganda and bullshit. Facebook didn’t create the propaganda but they sure the hell did post and promulgate it.
FB can, and refuses to, take many steps to stop this horror show. As Adrienne LaFrance points out in The Atlantic, FB could ban reshares, end the policy of whitelisting VIPs, focus on safety and quality instead of growth, change its algorithms, cap virality, limit the growth of groups—there’s plenty that FB could do if Mark Zuckerberg wanted to.
Ban “likes” showing up on feeds. “Likes” should only be notifications to the poster. Want to say something? Say it yourself.
Generally, the most low-information people never post anything themselves, but “like” what their friends “like”, so this will do more than anything to cut down the amount of crap. FB’s feed would then morph more into your friends sharing their wedding or vacation or holiday photos and less partisan political garbage. Those who do post political stuff would have to write it themselves, which is more of an effort, and thus it would tend to become more intelligent.
Facebook developed algorithms that find the BS and present it to vulnerable people in order to get as many ads viewed as possible. They know for a stone cold fact that they are causing addiction like problems in these people, and essentially turning them into psychopaths, but they do not care.
This is basically big tobacco all over again. They will argue that it’s not technically illegal, but there are lots of ways of harming your neighbors that are not explicitly prohibited, but are illegal regardless due to general prohibitions against hurting and killing people. The feds need to come down on FB like a ton of bricks. Not holding my breath, but man we would be a nicer, friendlier, safer society if they would just do so.
FB book served up the Covid disinformation, possibly with a side helping of white hate speech, and eating disorders (if on Instagram and a teen girl). It actively destroys lives, there is nothing passive about it.
You’re right, but Facebook isn’t exactly aggressive about removing disinformation from its pages, despite many agreements it has entered into to do precisely that.
What’s more interesting to me, though, is how a person with a lot of free time and nowhere to go suddenly turns to Facebook (or, as some people now refer to it, Life 2.0). It seems that hat was her first and biggest mistake. Until her unfortunate encounter with Facebook, she appeared almost responsible, except for not being willing to get vaccinated. After Facebook, she was the equivalent of veal.
FB allowed intentional lies to remain on their platform, they ARE responsible!
The important thing to remember is that if you do not stay on FB that Zuckerberg will not be able to gather and sell your information and that would be tragic.
Even internal FB documents show that the company’s product is causing harm by spreading disinformation and violence.
Sections from Hunter’s diary from Monday, Oct. 25th copied below.
My bold on the pertinent stuff.
Main takeaway from the diary:
if any, the company has to adjust its policies to not be a prime force for disinformation and violence
Experiments done of FB, by researchers creating a profile as a certain demographic (say, conservative evangelical white mom) mean once you set up your profile and log in, you get deluged with QAnon and anti-Vax and “Stop the Steal" bullsh*t in your feed. You get deluged with it even though you did not actively seek it out or indicate by anything but your demographic data that you might like it.
Who's fault is that? The user's? Or FB’s?
They get rich on it. They keep it there because it enriches them.
I can blame them. In fact, I’d be stupid not to. Not wholly, but plenty.
(I believe in free will, but susceptible people who can be easily corrupted by evil—whether evangeliKKKalism, anti-vaxxing, Q-shit, or minority-hating incels—are everywhere. We have to begin tracking the evil to its source and calling it out.)
Wonder if there are provisions in the BBB for children orphaned by Covid. If not, there should be. The children shouldn't have to suffer because their parent's stupidity, but they probably will. It's all so senseless and unnecessary.
Class action lawsuit, orphans vs Tucker Carlson and Zuckerberg. I would like to see that.
Elizabeth Warren is right. Facebook needs to be broken up. Their only mission is to make money. Democracy be damned. Human life be damned.
Capitalism needs to be broken up.
Really tough to take, that one. And I don’t have much left in the compassion tank for anti-vaxxers. I can’t imagine being a single parent of 5 and not taking every possible precaution against a sickness that might rob one’s kids of their remaining parent.
Single parent of 5 with 4 kids still at home? Gets Covid and dies after doing the anti-vaxxer thing. I think some dark things when I look at her situation and contemplate her motivations. I’ve thought that about some of the other cases in the Chronicles.
That 5th kid just became the only lifeline for the siblings. Way to go Mom.
Yup. His or her life for the next 10 years will be “try to support all of my siblings till they graduate HS.
Collateral damage.
That’s the term that keeps rolling around in the back of my mind. How much collateral damage does the GOP and FOX really believe they can afford?
Then I remember Viet Nam. Flint.
They. Do. Not. Care.
They question your facts and then try to shout you down. Those 73 million Trump voters are still out there — unless they’re all dead….
They are still dying at a most agreeable rate. So confidence is high.
Or they all go into foster care, and good luck finding a home that will take four kids with that age range.
Not all families are the same, but your average adult sibling won’t let younger brothers and sisters to end up in foster care if it is at all avoidable.
It’s far more likely when all are underage.
I think four of our five placements had adult siblings.
Sometimes it’s unavoidable, they just don’t have the resources.
And not all families are the same as I said...without knowing how many families did take in their sibs, we can’t know if my assertion was correct.
Most of my window into the foster system is when my mother in law was doing a CASA program (adults volunteering to be a kids advocate in courtroom when they had no family that could do so). These kids tended to actually HAVE family taking care of them, sometimes even their biological parents. But said family was incapable of navigating the complexities of the modern legal system. The CASA advocates would ensure paperwork got done, kids showed up to hearings on time, that sort of thing. But also tended to end up as a kind of mentor to the kid too. It’s hard to interact with a young person long term and not get attached and care how they do going forward.
How much is Facebook contributing to sustain orphans of Covid?
I have a nice round number in mind….
:-/
One child already no longer lived at home, out on their own.
Yes, that's the one that'll end up caring for 4 orphaned underage siblings.
IMO humans’ most important ability to survive on this planet is rational thinking. If we can lose that just by reading rubbish on facebook, our species is in dire trouble. Our species is overrunning the planet, and changing the atmosphere to result in the inability of humans to live here. The planet will rid itself of us at some point — like the fate of the dinosaurs.
Well, people as a group aren’t particularly rational and never have been. We only survive when some of us have the ability and the leadership skills to grasp the situation we are in and foster constructive change.
There is nobody in the GOP who fits that description right now. Blindly whipping up ignorant hatred may be easy, but it's definitely not leadership.
If we can lose that? Most people never had that.
And unless you have parents or a school that can teach that, how do you learn how to do that?
And if you have parents and a school and a church and three TV networks and a thousand radio stations teaching you the OPPOSITE of that?
AFAIC, the troll farms behind this are the minions of hostile entities who have a deliberate goal of destroying us from within. Anybody not actively pushing back against them is helping them. FB is complicit, and three quarters of a million people are already dead.
This is war.
Unfortunately, humans & cockroaches will be the last 2 remaining species.
Until cockroaches win.
They will. Count on it.
We were warned about watching this. YES IS WAS BRUTAL!
How awful for her children. Since it’s literally her last communication in this world, it has value for them but at a huge price.
What is happening to all the newly orphaned kids? There are many thousands, no? Do they all go to relatives, or into the foster care system? How awful, in addition to the grief of losing parents/caretakers.
This will probably get lost in all the comments here but this is an important question and comment.
Thanks to Trump, Fox, the GOP, FB and the anti vax crowd (for whatever reason) there is going to be a lost generation. Hundreds of Thousands of children will be denied reaching their potential and probably subjected to a life of poverty, trauma or depression. For what, for an election, for ad revenues? Is everything collateral damage for power and profit now? Sadly probably a rhetorical question.
This isn’t an accident. By actively creating what will be referred to in their propaganda as an ‘underclass’, they further the divide and lay further groundwork for revolt.
Agreed. Are people free to flaunt public safety and endanger their children? This is worse then their anti-abortion stance as they are endangering and abandoning real children.
My former Pastor said alot of Christians are going to bust hell wide open.
I remember early in the pandemic, before there was a vaccine, someone told me not to worry about getting Covid, since I’ll be with God if I die. Evidently it wasn’t important to them that I would be leaving a child all alone in the world.
So fucking sad. I feel for her children. There has to be a way to stop this nonsense.
Breaking up Facebook might help.
I nominate Zuckerberg for delivering the news to all the new, unnecessary orphans.
Sorry can’t blame all this on FaceBook . If not FB it would be something else. These people are Antimask AntiVaxx because those Gay, Lesbian, black, illegal, Anti Jesus, pro Abortion, Democrats support those things. Their Hate thinks for them. I’m sure she was all against ObamaCare because it came from our first black President. They lined up behind TRUMP because he said “Lock Her Up” .
This is more of the FREEDUM movement killing their own more than FB. I’m sure she listened to Rush and his copies for years. And here Preacher likely talked about the Godless democrats and Pelosi.
When learned prejudice metastasizes, it becomes the unthinking hate we see in anti-vaxxers and Trumpers. Mixed with the fear that drives all authoritarians, it makes for a powerful fix that’s just as addictive as any drug.
That’s a complete generalization and overlooks anti-vaxxers who fell down a mommy or wellness rabbit hole. Not all anti-vaxxers are right wing, enough of them on the left to paint with such a broad brush.
And you can’t say “If not FB it would be something else”. Facebook has its own data on how much anti-vax propaganda they pushed and they’ve built communities to take whatever propaganda into the real world. Is FB the only one? Hell no, it’s just the biggest and worst offender.
“Sure, I killed him, your honor. But even if I hadn’t, he would have died of something or other . . . eventually.”
Of course not. Can’t blame all gun deaths on the NRA either.
You forgot Jews. They are apparently behind the entire “Great Replacement,” according to the nutters. Because they “control the entire country.”
Hello, onetonofmetal.
Thanks for creating an account on our site and posting in this thread. I guess that’s why there is a saying that one is “blinded by hate.” Ironically, when one is blinded by hate, one tends to see the object of that hate responsible for all that is ill in the world.
Just quit facebook.
we have many ways of staying in touch with the people who actually mean something to us that don’t endanger us.
I haven’t been on Facebook in nearly a year. You’re preaching to the choir, friend.
I disabled my FB account a few years ago (2017?). Other than getting a vasectomy, one of the best decisions I ever made. Amazing how much toxicity left my life when FB left my life.
Done and done, thank you. Though the vasectomy was the toughest decision I ever made, leaving FB was not.
Disabling your FB account is only a start...deleting it entirely is the way to fully make the break.
I did in 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.
Yes, i figured that out too. I thought I deleted my account back in 2017 and i only disabled it. Fortunately a relative told me recently that my account was active and someone has created a fake account that people thought was me.
the fake account bass taken down and now i have deleted the genuine account as well.
This time i am sure that i deleted it because they are sending me all kind of panicky messages asking am I sure. Hell yes I'm sure!
I tried Facebook several years ago, thought it was boring, then strangers showed up as “friends”. That’s when I quit using it. Talking to family on the phone is much more authentic and intimate than Facebook. Hearing a loved one's voice is beautiful and conveys emotion accurately. The only way to minimize the influence of Facebook is to not use it. Your choice. I made mine.
The exact reason I quit after a couple of days! Those strangers weren't my friends and I didn't give a crap about their lives. Besides live conversations, I only email and sometimes text. Nothing beats the texture of one’s voice.
Disturbing is total strangers spewing intimate parts of their lives to the wind. Stuff like this resides in your permanent record in a big data center on the edge of town, just waiting to be exploited.
That’s very disturbing.
Never joined, always knew it was toxic...
High five from me—just like I give anyone who quits smoking.
DELETE IT. There is no product if we’re not there.
Yeah no. A few hundred liberals signing off FB — they won’t notice it among the billions on the planet.
“We” being people, in general.
Have you deleted, or are you saying there’s no point because it’s too big? Sounds like people saying they don’t vote because their vote doesn’t matter.
I’m not deleting shit because it’s still useful for me. Crying for people to leave FB when there are literally billions of people on it is a waste of time. IF you don’t like it — don’t use it. Fine. But trying to dictate other people’s use of a tool is not ok.
Voting matters. Whether or not I have a FB account doesn’t.
I support Warren-type legislation to break up Facebook. In the meantime, I’m going to use it. It’s a very good networking tool for activist Democrats. I have 50 people to an on-line organizing event in rural Oklahoma which would have been lucky to muster half a dozen participants without Facebook. Follow-up action is going to come from the event. At least half of the attendees were people with whom I had never been in contact, so traditional phone chains, etc., would not have done the trick. I also follow up Facebook “likes” with messages suggesting some sort of involvement. Sure, Facebook is evil. But a few of us dropping out will make no difference. We need to use it for our own purposes. The other side certainly will.
So we just have to accept that they’re responsible for the complete breakdown of the fabric of society? And they get to get away with it because it’s “useful.”
Exactly. FB is a tool, just like any other. It helps me run a home business and keep up with what my clients need. As I also have a disability and no driver's license, it helps me get to friends who can give me rides to places without having to call an Uber. Amazon, also, has enabled my life in great ways by shipping needed items to my door, within days. The privilege of those who say Just Delete FB, Just delete Amazon is astonishing. These two platforms are lifelines for more folks than you’ll ever know.