The Daily Sceptic
Home page in January 2023
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)Toby Young
URLdailysceptic.org

The Daily Sceptic is a blog created by British commentator Toby Young. It has published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines[9] and climate change denial.[16]

History

Young founded The Daily Sceptic as a successor to his previous blog Lockdown Sceptics, which was set up in April 2020.[17] He serves as the website's editor-in-chief.[18]

Content

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation

In October 2021, The Daily Sceptic published an article suggesting that Office for National Statistics (ONS) data showing an increase in the number of teenage deaths between June and September 2021 was connected to the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the United Kingdom. The ONS confirmed that the figures were accurate, but added that there was no evidence to link the increase in deaths to the COVID-19 vaccines.[1]

In November 2021, The Daily Sceptic used data published in a UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) report to claim that 71% of adults hospitalised with COVID-19 were vaccinated. The disinformation analysis organisation Logically noted that the complete UKHSA report cautioned against using the raw data to estimate vaccine effectiveness due to it not taking inherent biases such as "differences in risk, behaviour and testing" into account.[2]

In September 2022, The Daily Sceptic reported on a declaration by a group of scientists and doctors claiming that the COVID-19 vaccines were causing an "international medical crisis". The fact-checking website Health Feedback noted that The Daily Sceptic did not acknowledge that the claims made in the declaration had previously been fact-checked and found to be inaccurate, unsupported or misleading.[3]

Also in September 2022, PayPal shut down the accounts of Young, the Free Speech Union and The Daily Sceptic. The accounts were closed because of breaches of PayPal's acceptable use policy, thought to be because of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.[19] The accounts were restored later that month after extensive criticism of PayPal's actions by MPs.[20]

In December 2022, The Daily Sceptic claimed that a study published in the Clinical Research in Cardiology journal showed that people who had "died suddenly" were likely killed by the COVID-19 vaccines. The article was widely shared on social media, due to the phrase "died suddenly" being associated with an anti-vaccine film of the same name. Experts consulted by Health Feedback found that the claim was not supported by the study's actual findings.[7][8]

Climate change denial

In August 2022, a Daily Sceptic article claimed that the World Climate Declaration had "dealt a savage blow" to the idea that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for climate change, and argued that global warming may instead be a natural event.[21] Climate Feedback and Euronews noted that most of the document's signatories were not climate scientists and included personalities with ties to fossil fuel interests, and that experts in the field of climatology had concluded that human greenhouse gas emissions are predominantly responsible for climate change.[11][22][14] A March 2023 report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that The Daily Sceptic article was the fourth most-shared URL from among 32 climate-denying websites on Twitter between 1 January 2022 and 1 March 2023.[14]

In October 2022, a Daily Sceptic article said that studies in Greenland showed that climate change is caused by natural factors rather than carbon emissions. The scientists behind said studies told Agence France-Presse that The Daily Sceptic had misrepresented their findings, and that the impact of fossil fuels on global warming was well-documented.[12]

A January 2023 Daily Sceptic article cited a sentence from the abstract of a 2020 study published in Nature that noted a lack of rising temperatures in Antarctica despite rising levels of carbon dioxide, claiming it proved that human-driven climate change is an "unproven hypothesis". The paper's co-author, Hansi Singh of the University of Victoria in Canada, told PolitiFact that the abstract had been taken out of context. She noted that the point of the paper was to show that Antarctica experienced significantly less warming than the global average between 1950 and 2014. The article was shared by American political commentator Dinesh D'Souza in April.[23]

A May 2023 Daily Sceptic article claimed that underwater volcanoes could cause global warming which is otherwise attributed to human activities, and that climate models do not take volcanic activity into consideration. Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz, a professor of geology and climate change at Aarhus University in Denmark, called The Daily Sceptic's article an example of "alternative facts". She explained that climate models do account for volcanic activity, and that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by human activity is 60 times higher than the amount produced by volcanoes.[15]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Teen deaths up since last year, but no evidence vaccines responsible". Full Fact. 11 October 2021. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022. The Daily Sceptic article states that the increased number of deaths corresponded with the timing of the roll out of Covid-19 vaccinations among this age group and asks if this is "real-world evidence that over the summer the vaccines killed nine times as many 15-19 year-olds as Covid did?" ... There is also no evidence that this is caused by Covid-19 vaccines.
  2. 1 2 Pallavi (25 November 2021). "Misleading: COVID-19 vaccines don't work because most people in U.K. hospitals with the virus are vaccinated". Logically. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2023. The Daily Sceptic, a website that often propagates COVID-19 misinformation, has published a misleading article regarding vaccine effectiveness.
  3. 1 2 "The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective; claim that they have caused an "international medical crisis" is baseless". Health Feedback. 19 September 2022. Archived from the original on 1 March 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2022. Outlets like One American News Network (OAN) and Daily Sceptic ... reported on the declaration. Neither outlet acknowledged that the claims made in the declaration were previously fact-checked and found to be inaccurate, unsupported or misleading.
  4. ↑ "Fact Check-Vaccine-effectiveness study does not show 'negative immunity' or harm to the immune system". Reuters. 19 September 2022. Archived from the original on 30 December 2022. Retrieved 30 December 2022. Social media users are sharing an online article that claims the "COVID vaccine destroys natural immunity" and creates "negative immunity" based on misinterpretation of a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The misleading headline and link to an article published by the Daily Sceptic has been viewed more than 20,000 times on Facebook ... and has been shared more than 11,000 times on Twitter.
  5. ↑ Payne, Ed (29 September 2022). "Fact Check: Oxford Study Does NOT Say COVID Vaccination Increases Infection Risk by 44% -- Figure Is From Study Subsection Only". Lead Stories. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  6. ↑ Gorski, David (10 October 2022). "The State of Florida spreads antivaccine disinformation disguised as an epidemiological "study"". Science-Based Medicine. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023. It's not surprising that the usual suspects are amplifying this "study" as slam-dunk evidence that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous and do more harm than good. I surveyed some of the usual suspects, and here's just a little of what I found: ... The Daily Sceptic (a denialist website): Florida Recommends Against mRNA Vaccination for Males Aged 18-39 Due to 84% Increase in Heart Death Risk
  7. 1 2 "No, a German "autopsy report" didn't show COVID-19 vaccines as "likely" cause of sudden deaths". Health Feedback. 13 December 2022. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022. An article written by Will Jones for the website The Daily Sceptic, promoting this claim, also went viral through social media posts... Jones, who holds a PhD in political philosophy, asserted that the study meant it was now a "firmly established" fact that COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for sudden deaths. ... However, experts who weren't involved in the study found that such an interpretation isn't substantiated by the work actually done in the study.
  8. 1 2 Jaramillo, Catalina (21 December 2022). "Autopsy Study Doesn't Show COVID-19 Vaccines Are Unsafe". FactCheck.org. Archived from the original on 30 December 2022. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
  9. ↑ [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
  10. ↑ "Warming of Earth's surface and oceans continues apace, contrary to claims in blog". Climate Feedback. 9 June 2022. Archived from the original on 30 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  11. 1 2 "Letter stating there is "no climate emergency" repeats inaccurate claims about climate science". Climate Feedback. 24 August 2022. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  12. 1 2 Parry, Roland Lloyd (6 October 2022). "Article misrepresents studies on Greenland climate". Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  13. ↑ "Fact Check-Study on Greenland warming does not contradict human-driven climate change". Reuters. 11 October 2022. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  14. 1 2 3 Simmons, Cécile (15 March 2023). "Mainstreaming climate scepticism: Analysing the reach of fringe websites on Twitter". Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Archived from the original on 29 April 2023. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
  15. 1 2 Kristensen, Nikolaj (11 May 2023). "Mapping of the seabed does not prove underwater volcanoes to be the cause of human-made global warming". Logically. Archived from the original on 11 May 2023. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  16. ↑ [10][11][12][13][14][15]
  17. ↑ Young, Toby. "About". The Daily Sceptic. Archived from the original on 3 January 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  18. ↑ Loucaides, Darren (9 August 2021). "Inside the UK's anti-lockdown media machine". Coda Media. Archived from the original on 14 August 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  19. ↑ James Beal (22 September 2022). "PayPal Free Speech Union accounts shut over Covid 'misinformation'". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 23 September 2022. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
  20. ↑ Diver, Tony; Bodkin, Henry (27 September 2022). "PayPal reinstates Free Speech Union accounts after being accused of 'politically motivated' ban". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 28 September 2022. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
  21. ↑ Morrison, Chris (18 August 2022). "1,200 Scientists and Professionals Declare: "There is No Climate Emergency"". The Daily Sceptic. Archived from the original on 21 May 2023. Retrieved 5 June 2023.
  22. ↑ "Fact check: Did 1,200 climate experts sign 'declaration' denying climate emergency?". Euronews. 16 September 2022. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
  23. ↑ Nguyen, Andy (21 April 2023). "This study about Antarctica doesn't contradict climate change, as claim suggests". PolitiFact. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
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