A couple of weeks back when we shared an article about anti-vax influencers and celebrities, one of the listed social media stars who was actually happy to be included was Leila Stead.
The mum-blogger, who boasts 35.9 followers, has made her views abundantly clear on her Instagram, proudly revealing that she attended the anti-lockdown protests a few weeks back and posting anti-vaxxer BS on the daily.
Credit: Instagram / Leila Stead.
Not only that, but she shared our article to her Instagram Story and told folks that the listed anti-vaxxers are people you should be following. Yep. Just a bit of background there.
ANYWAY.
The same influencer shared an email she received from triple j’s Hack to her IG Story and revealed that she had been invited for an interview.
Observe:
After sharing that she was being interviewed by triple j, feminist author Clementine Ford DM’d triple j Hack on Instagram to call them out for giving Leila a platform.
The radio program responded by saying that they didn’t plan on interviewing her, per se, but rather they intended on getting her thoughts for a segment on the “impacts of misinformation being spread on Instagram.”
But after speaking to Leila, they decided against using her input in the segment, which I think is for the best.
“This screenshot from Leila is taken out of context, but we’re happy to clarify,” triple j wrote.
“Tomorrow on Hack we’re running a segment about the harms and impacts of misinformation being spread by anti-vaxxers on Instagram. We think it’s important to talk about the issue of misinformation and how to improve public health messaging.”
They revealed that they “approached and spoke to Leila, who experts believe spreads harmful misinformation about vaccines on her Instagram” and after speaking to her, “we have decided not to include any commentary from her, or any other anti-vaxxers, in the segment.”
Clementine added, “Really glad to see @triplejhack are not planning on giving any airtime to anti-vaxxers but focusing instead on the scourge of misinformation. No one should engaged in dialogue with anti-vaxxers publicly. It’s not a debate, it’s public health.”
Head here to have a listen to triple j’s episode about influencers spreading dangerous information on social media.
Misinformation about COVID is running rampant on socials. Just recently, a video of a NSW Health official who accidentally misspoke was shared more than 11,500 times amongst anti-vaxxer groups. TikTok has since removed the video.
