Modena is watching you.

Original author: Lee Fang, Jack Poulson authorized translation

Novak Djokovic returned to the US Open this year and won the title, becoming an immortal legend. "The Guardian" said, "His 'greatness' lies in his ability to rise stronger after encountering difficulties." But for pharmaceutical giant Moderna, this is nothing less than a heavy blow.

“Djokovic crowned anti-vaccination hero after US Open win,” wailed the title of an internal Moderna report. The report wrote: "Djokovic was banned from participating in the 2022 US Open for not taking the vaccine, but this year he won this Moderna-sponsored event as soon as he returned. This perception is very bad, and it encourages opposition. The Vaccine Argument: Vaccines and mandatory vaccines are unnecessary.”

The report rated news surrounding Djokovic's title win as "high risk," noting that "vaccine opponents are celebrating" the tennis champion and "sarcastically pointing out that Moderna is the U.S. Open's Sponsors". Another report, written by Moderna marketing executives working with former FBI and Secret Service analysts, also warned of several "misleading information."

But the content Moderna labeled as “misleading information” that harmed public health was far from viral deception; it was just legitimate discussion about vaccine-related issues. The "Modern Misinformation Report," revealed here for the first time in this story, sheds light on what the pharmaceutical company is doing to shape the public image of its flagship product and potentially influence policymaking.

Moderna has made huge profits from the epidemic. The start-up biotech company developed one of the most effective vaccines during the pandemic and became a household name. Its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has valued the company at $100 billion, creating five new billionaires, including CEO Stéphane Bancel, Chairman Noubar Afeyan, and co-founder Robert Robert Langer, President Stephen Hoge, and Timothy Springer, a professor at Harvard Medical School and an early investor.

However, as demand for the new coronavirus vaccine plummeted, Moderna's revenue also plummeted. This year, its only marketable product could not be sold and was left idle, and the company also suffered a huge loss. Moderna was also forced to pay patent royalties to NIAID, the U.S. government agency that helped develop basic research into the mRNA vaccine technology. Therefore, in January, Bancel announced that he would increase the price of each dose of the vaccine to US$130, which is much higher than the US$15-26 stipulated in the US federal contract (price figures are from the Wall Street Journal). Bancel was asked to defend the decision, and his response was, "We expect demand to be reduced by 90%. As we all know, we are losing economies of scale."

In response to evaporating profits, Moderna has launched a cool new marketing campaign. In one promotional video, a child chases a red thread that turns into a ribbon, and a narrator explains that this is the mRNA sequence that could unlock cures for various diseases. The company's latest TV ad portrays the coronavirus vaccine as a symbol of a healthy lifestyle. With cool music playing in the background, the ad says, "Make COVID-19 vaccination a part of your health routine: Spikevax your body." [Note: Spikevax is the brand name of the Moderna vaccine, and “spike” refers to the spike of the virus]

For Moderna, it is critical that people continue to be vaccinated. Smart advertising is part of that, but more important is actively countering any anti-vaccine views and doing everything you can to engage in all discussions about vaccine policymaking. This is where the Moderna Disinformation Department comes into play.

Behind the scenes, Moderna's marketing arm has been working with former law enforcement and public health officials to monitor and influence vaccine policy. One of the key institutions is an NGO funded by the pharmaceutical industry called Public Good Projects (PGP). According to documents obtained by CNN, PGP works closely with social media platforms, government agencies and news media to address "the root causes of vaccine hesitancy" by quickly identifying and "shut down disinformation." It provides "talking points" to a network of 45,000 medical professionals as well as "advice on how to respond when vaccine disinformation becomes prevalent," according to an email from Moderna.

Moderna’s disinformation unit is deeply involved in and continuing the public discourse war that has been raging since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, aiming to shut down any discussion that may undermine the implementation of new crown policies, such as those questioning lockdowns and mass vaccination. The documents we obtained open a window into how debate over the past three years has been monitored and manipulated.

With PGP, Moderna monitors a large number of mainstream media, as well as some unconventional media, such as the Steam online gaming community and self-blogging site Medium. Moderna, meanwhile, is also using Talkwalker, a service that uses its "Blue Silk" artificial intelligence system to monitor vaccine-related conversations on 150 million websites in nearly 200 countries. In addition to vaccine hesitancy, discussions around "competitor" issues, including discussion of Pfizer, were flagged.

The main execution team for the surveillance program is Moderna's Global Intelligence Division, headed by Nikki Rutman, who has worked as an analyst for the FBI for nearly 20 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rutman worked in the FBI's Boston office as part of Operation Warp Speed. Her job function was to work with Boston-based Moderna on behalf of the FBI, holding regular weekly meetings. Including her, many law enforcement personnel have switched jobs to vaccine manufacturers during the COVID-19 epidemic. This reflects a larger trend: the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are increasingly relying on social media platforms and framing content control on social media as a national security issue.

The department regularly publishes reports for internal circulation. The report includes color-coded warnings indicating the severity of various anti-vaccination rhetoric. High-risk and medium-risk alerts include an explanation of the source of the news and why it's important, followed by "low-risk threats we are monitoring that do not require any action at this time." If action is required, "our department will notify stakeholders and provide advice."

Elon Musk has been labeled "high risk," according to a report we've seen. Specifically, Musk retweeted a video mocking media and government officials who claim that the COVID-19 vaccine is "100% effective." The report did not identify any falsehoods in the video, but warned that the video showed "deceptive claims by health authorities during the epidemic" and could "create the ground for sowing doubts about authoritative sources claiming that vaccines are safe and effective." .

Another celebrity named in the Moderna report as a critic of Big Pharma is Russell Brand. He was flagged in September this year after some netizens speculated that he was being targeted by the government for his "anti-vaccination beliefs."

The report showed a video of Brand denouncing the huge profits of pharmaceutical companies, claiming that Moderna and Pfizer were "making a thousand dollars a second in profits" during the pandemic. This alert is marked "High Risk." The alert warns that Brand's views are "widely disseminated within the anti-vaccine community, where he is seen as a truth teller and a challenger to threatening authority." Moderna further noted that Brand has received support from "high-profile" figures such as Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson.

None of the Moderna reports we've seen attempt to prove that these figures' claims are false. To the extent that these figures’ claims fuel vaccine hesitancy, they automatically become “disinformation.” We reached out to Moderna for comment but did not receive a response.

Aaron Kheriaty, a fellow and bioethicist at the Center for Ethics and Public Policy, said, “Many times under the guise of combating disinformation, it’s really just corporate PR trying to steer public opinion in a direction that is beneficial to the company’s interests. Is there anyone who really wants to Live in a system where social media messages are manipulated by governments or profit-seeking multinational corporations?”

This is where the lines between Moderna's PR and policy lobbying become blurred. It's fine for a company to engage in information gathering and try to send out a positive message, but it's another thing to use that information for nefarious purposes. Of particular note here is PGP, which is arguably the core of Moderna’s disinformation department.

PGP maintains close ties with government and media. It received a $1,275,000 donation from the Biotechnology and Innovation Organization, the lobbying arm representing Pfizer and Moderna. Moderna first worked closely with PGP in 2021-2022 on a program called "Stronger," which was designed to identify disinformation and influence censorship decisions on social media. PGP is particularly well-positioned to provide this kind of help because it has backdoor access to Twitter data (known as a "firehose") and has helped Twitter develop its epidemic-related speech policies.

Through internal Twitter emails, we discovered that PGP's disinformation reporting team was in frequent contact with Twitter lobbyist Todd O'Boyle and regularly sent him an Excel spreadsheet with a list of accounts to amplify or review. We know from email exchanges that their intention is not just to combat disinformation but also to influence the content and tone of public debate. While PGP identified some blatant disinformation, such as claims that vaccines contain microchips or are intentionally designed to kill patients, many of the tweets flagged as disinformation amounted to little more than criticism of vaccine passports and other measures aimed at mandating vaccinations policy.

The relationship extends to law enforcement as well. Last year, Vijaya Gadde, then Twitter’s general counsel, advised the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Task Force on relying on trusted fact-checking organizations to identify false information. As first reported by this article, Gadde suggested in an email to colleagues that the government meet with the PGP to crack down on speech issues related to COVID-19.

This year, Moderna's corporate intelligence and marketing teams are working closely with PGP again to shape the vaccine discussion in response to a cliff-like drop in vaccinations. The partnership expanded again in October, with Moderna, PGP and the American College of Physicians developing an official training program to help healthcare professionals identify medical disinformation. The online course, called the Infodemic Training Programme, represents a formal partnership between the pharmaceutical community and non-governmental organizations. However, PGP has not disclosed its work with Moderna in recent years on its website or in its infodemic training program. PGP did not respond to the author's request for comment.

As the epidemic gradually subsides, Moderna has stepped up surveillance operations, paying particular attention to policies related to mandatory vaccination. The company is paying particularly close attention to recently elected officials and laws passed limiting vaccine mandates in Arkansas and Texas.

“Some politicians are trying to ban vaccine mandates, or claiming to do so, signaling growing resistance to COVID-19 measures,” a Moderna alert reads. This is surprising given that the company has avoided commenting publicly on the mandate debate. There is some information.

This attitude was confirmed by an Oct. 5 report that referenced a tweet from Elon Musk detailing his opposition to the mandate. Musk was angry about "requiring people to be vaccinated and have multiple booster shots," adding that had the courts not overturned Biden's employer mandate (in January 2022), "SpaceX and many other companies would have been Force employees who refuse to be vaccinated to be fired.”

The report states: “Musk has one of the largest platforms in the world—literally and figuratively—which he has increasingly used to promote unpopular vaccine opponents and conspiracy theorists. "

Even as resistance to social media censorship grows, the network of fact-checking nonprofits has grown exponentially, providing private and public interests with subtle opportunities to control public discussion in subtle ways. . This complex mechanism of corporate advertising and public health messaging should be alarming to anyone concerned about how governments control free speech.

“It’s interesting to get this glimpse into the disinformation industry,” said bioethicist Kheriaty, “how it actually works. It involves controlling the narrative, controlling the flow of information, controlling how people think about public policy, like vaccine mandates, and the perception of a particular product that a company is making huge profits from," he added. "Those are extremely concerning."

Introduction to the original author

Lee Fang: A well-known American independent investigative reporter who worked for The Intercept for eight years. In his early years, he was known for his investigative reporting from a left-wing progressive stance. In April 2023, he left The Intercept to become an independent investigative reporter. The Substack website is https://www.leefang.com/ .

Jack Poulson: PhD in Computational and Applied Mathematics. He has taught at Georgia Tech University, Stanford University and Google AI Department. After resigning from Google in 2018, he turned to investigative journalism, focusing on technology, surveillance and arms. The Substack website is https://jackpoulson.substack.com/ .

Original title: Moderna Is Spying On You ( link ), published on November 20, 2023. The translator is authorized to translate.