The Video They Raced to Delete
In May 2020, a 26-minute clip called “Plandemic” pushed false claims about the coronavirus to millions of viewers before Facebook, YouTube and other platforms scrambled to take it down. It became an early case study in how quickly a health hoax can spread and how hard it is to contain once it does.
The video arrived in early May 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was reshaping daily life across the United States. Presented as a trailer for a forthcoming film, the roughly 26-minute clip featured Judy Mikovits, described by MIT Technology Review as a well-known anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. Within days it had spread across the largest social platforms.
What the clip claimed
The video advanced a series of false and misleading assertions about the pandemic. According to MIT Technology Review, it suggested that wearing a mask would “activate” the virus, claimed a flu vaccine was “driving the pandemic,” and asserted that Anthony Fauci, then the top U.S. infectious-disease official, should be charged with “treason.” A report syndicated by The Washington Post similarly described the clip as claiming that wearing masks is harmful and using out-of-context footage to attack Fauci.
How far it traveled
The clip reached a large audience before it was removed. By the time Facebook took it down, it had accumulated 1.8 million views, 17,000 comments and nearly 150,000 shares on the platform, according to figures reported by both MIT Technology Review and The Washington Post. It also drew millions of additional views on YouTube.
The scramble to remove it
As the video spread, platforms moved to delete it. Facebook said it was removing the clip because of its mask claim. “Suggesting that wearing a mask can make you sick could lead to imminent harm, so we're removing the video,” the company said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. MIT Technology Review reported that Facebook took the clip down for promoting “the potentially harmful claim that wearing a mask can make you ill,” and that YouTube removed it on May 7 for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies. The video-hosting service Vimeo also took it down, saying its trust and safety team acted against “harmful and misleading health information,” according to The Washington Post.
An early stress test
The episode became one of the first widely cited examples of a viral health hoax outpacing the systems built to catch it. As MIT Technology Review noted, the removals themselves prompted supporters to allege censorship, helping the clip trend and drawing further attention even as the original was deleted. In the months that followed, researchers and platforms continued to point to “Plandemic” as evidence of how difficult it is to contain misinformation once it has already been shared, viewed and discussed at scale.