THE BIG STORY

That "Plandemic" nonsense

A slickly produced video peddling a whole bunch of nonsense about the coronavirus has been spreading like wildfire on social media. "The Plandemic" features a woman named Judy Mikovits, a prominent anti-vaccine activist who claims to have once worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of scientists advising the White House on its coronavirus response.

“Dr. Mikovits is naming names of those behind the plague of corruption that places all human life in danger,” a voiceover says. The video goes on to make a string of false claims, including that wearing a mask can make you sicker and that sand from the beach can help build your immunity to the virus. It also warns, as anti-vaccine videos tend to do, that the proposed vaccines are dangerous.

And yet! There’s a big audience for this kind of conspiracy theorizing, and the video has been all over Facebook and YouTube in recent days, getting millions of views and shares. Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo all said yesterday that they would be taking the video down from their sites, saying it violates their rules on harmful content.

But you’re likely to keep seeing this video, and references to it, popping up all over the internet, so Jane Lytvynenko, our in-house expert on viral nonsense, took a deep dive into the video, its many falsehoods, and the people pushing it.

YouTube

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

The unemployment crisis

The US unemployment rate has hit 14.7%, the highest it’s been since the Great Depression in the early 1930s, according to the monthly jobs report released today. An estimated 20.5 million jobs were lost in April, and even that could be an underestimate, because the report is based on information gathered in the middle of the month.

Here’s how that unemployment rate looks relative to everything else we’ve experienced this century, including the 2001 and 2008 recessions.

The hardest hit sector of the economy was leisure and hospitality, which accounted for more than one of every three jobs lost as hotels, bars and entertainment venues closed their doors.

But another sector that took a very heavy hit was healthcare, with 1.4 million jobs lost nationwide. While hospitals in many states have been dealing with a surge of coronavirus patients, demand for virtually all other healthcare services has evaporated, as Venessa Wong reported this week. People are canceling trips to the dentist and non-essential surgeries, and avoiding hospitals out of fear of contracting the virus. Hospitals across the country expect to lose a combinated $200 billion from March to June.

SNAPSHOTS

The controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI will stop offering its services to all private companies. The New York startup is facing numerous lawsuits over its use of data scraped from social networks.

The killers of Ahmaud Arbery have been arrested in Georgia. Video of the killing, released on Wednesday, led to national outrage.

Education secretary Betsy DeVevos has finalized new guidelines for handling sexual assault allegations on college campuses. The changes include a narrowed definition of sexual assault, and giving those accused the right to cross examine their accuser via a third party.

The Dallas salon owner who was sentenced to seven days in jail for violating lockdown rules has been released early. The Texas Supreme court ordered her release, and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he would personally pay her fine.

Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther (Lm Otero / AP)

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INFLUENCERS ARE HURTING

How J.Crew’s bankruptcy is hitting the ‘Gram

On Tuesday, the influencer Sarah Tripp – known among other things as the infamous “curvy wife” of previous viral fame — was planning to do one of her regular segments where she tries on clothes for viewers, who can click on links and order them if they like the look. Thanks to the affiliate fees paid by online retailers, it has become a lucrative way for Instagrammers to make money.

But after J.Crew filed for bankruptcy, the segment got canceled. The retailer’s “affiliate links no longer work,” she told fans. “As a working mama, I have to protect my time and it takes me hours to do try-ons (steam, film, edit, link post, etc.). If I can’t make any commission off these links, it’s not worth my time!”

It’s a small window into how the influencer economy is working right now, Stephanie McNeal reports. And it’s a reminder of how much you see on Instagram is driven by these kind of commercial priorities. “I like to imagine an influencer’s feed as a magazine,” she writes. “Magazines are full of ads, but would you read a magazine that was only made up of ads?’

via Instagram / @sassyredlipstick

A CHANGE OF PACE

A reading list from the before times

Remember back when there was other stuff going on? Remember when you could kick back and think about anything else apart from...all this? Anyhow, just in case you feel like temporarily escaping to another time and place at some point in the coming days, here’s a few lovely feature articles from the Before Times, back when there were things in the world other than the coronavirus.

How Nashville Became One Big Bachelorette Party — Anne Helen Petersen explores the rapid changes and gentrification that took place as Nashville became one of the nation’s leading travel destinations, and a star of the bachelorette party circuit.

The Man Who Made Adidas Cool Again — Reggie Ugwu profiles Paul Gaudio, the Adidas creative director who transformed the company’s product line and harnessed sneaker culture to make it one of the hottest brands in sportswear.

The Hunt for Poland’s Buried Nazi Gold Trains — If that headline doesn’t grab you, I don’t know what will. Sarah Topol’s look at the true believers searching for riches in tunnels beneath Polish mountains is just incredible.

You can have a little escapism this weekend, as a treat,

Tom