On TikTok, audio gives new virality to misinformation

In December, a Wisconsin man who goes by the username the_alpha_k9 on TikTok uploaded a testimonial-style video to the platform, telling his thousands of followers that he wouldn’t be taking a Covid-19 vaccine. 

“You’re telling me in 40 years of research there is no vaccine for HIV … for cancer, no vaccine ... the common cold, no vaccine,” he said. “Yet in one year we’ve developed a vaccine for COVID-19 and you want me to take that … thanks, but no thanks.”

It was one of the many debunked, run-of-the-mill...