Is humanity being held hostage by a new world order pushing COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: The video in this Facebook post recycles previously debunked claims about COVID and plays into the rhetoric of an elaborate QAnon story of a cabal of blood-drinking elites working for global dominion.
The claims appear in a post (archived here) on November 16, 2021. Titled "BREAKING NEWS HUMANITY HELD HOSTAGE BY THE NEW WORLD ORDER," the narration at the end of the video identifies it as coming from Stranger Than Fiction News. The post opens:
JAB AWARENESS - Please SHARE!We must PROTECT HUMANITY!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook on November 23, 2021:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Nov 23 15:17:15 2021 UTC)
The narrator opens by saying:
People are dropping dead on the television and the television is pretending like it's not happening ... but the evidence is overwhelming and it's not just the athletes that are dropping dead but we've got the news media, government officials dropping dead. They've got neurological issues. Something is going on with this vaccine ...
The ominous words play over a disturbing video loop of athletes and politicians collapsing. None of the people Lead Stories was able to identify in the video clips were known to be sick with COVID, had received a vaccine or died following their collapse. Faintings after vaccinations are not unusual. The video clips are shown out of context, but include:
- Denmark footballer Christian Eriksen collapses on the field during a match at the European Championship in June 2021.
- British tennis player Jack Draper collapses in oppressive heat at the Miami Open in March 2021.
- Official Bert Smith collapses during a game at the NCAA basketball tournament in March 2021.
- Tanja Erichsen, the head of Denmark's medicines agency, faints during a press conference in April 2021.
- Alois Dambachmayr, a Catholic church official from Linz, Austria, collapses on the ORF show "OÖ Heute," or "Upper Austria Today" in 2014.
After its introduction, the video quickly launches into a laundry list of debunked COVID conspiracy theories about:
- Tromethamine, a stabilizing pH buffer used in the vaccine for children
- How more people are dying from the vaccine than from the virus
- Nanoparticles, nanobots and graphene oxide in the vaccines
- How scientists did not isolate the COVID virus
- How scientists could not tell the difference between the COVID virus and influenza
- 5G, the fifth generation of cellphone internet connection, offering faster download and upload speeds
At 10:20 in the video, the narrator says all these claims are linked to a Satan-worshipping cabal, a QAnon conspiracy theory:
These people on television are cult members. They worship the devil. This is a giant blood sacrifice and if you don't get their death vax -- it's like the mark of the beast -- you can't buy or sell, you can't participate in society, you're no longer free.
Other "blood sacrifices" mentioned in the video include the deadly Astroworld festival in November 2021 and the mass shooting at the 2017 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip that killed 58 people. At 11:55 the video says:
They're killing people for the fun of it, for the sport, for entertainment, and until people wake up and realize that they're being targeted by a system of evil, things aren't going to get any better.
The video was posted in a public group on Facebook called Liberty LIVIN. This is what its "About" section says:
Uniting and Creating a FREE WORLD ALLIANCE!Liberty LIVIN will be working to create a new Alternative Education system and new Alternative Health Care system. Thank you for joining the Liberty LIVIN Community.We will continue to defend our Rights and Freedoms by LIVING FREE!
