'Pro-lockdown' advocates 'submit hoax signatures' to an anti-lockdown declaration signed by thousands of medical experts

Economic and political historian and senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, Phil Magness, tweeted that Nafeez Ahmed, a British journalist, was one of the people responsible for a fake submission and that it was being deleted.

“‘Journalist’ @NafeezAhmed has a thread this morning openly boasting about how he attempted to submit fraudulent signatures,” Magness tweeted Friday. “Needless to say, his submission and others like it are being actively deleted.”

“My fake profile for the Great Barrington Declaration allowed me, myself and I to confirm the fake information I submitted, allowing me to receive a simple email verification to get my ‘Medical & Public Health’ scientist signatory status confirmed,” Ahmed said as part of a lengthy Twitter thread, adding that the declaration was using “fraud to support science.”

Magness said that others online are “intentionally submitting hoax signatures” to the declaration, with names like “Mickey Mouse,” speaking to the “juvenile opposition” of those who disagree with the thousands of health experts who have signed the letter opposing lockdowns and urging governments across the country and push for “herd immunity.”

Ahmed told the Washington Examiner that he does not “have an ax to grind” with the scientists behind the declaration and has been critical of “draconian” lockdowns in the past but was “surprised” at what he perceived as an “opaque” verification process to sign the declaration.

“I was surprised to find that it was so easy for anyone to self-verify as a ‘scientist’ signatory, without any actual verification process to confirm this is the case,” Ahmed said. “If that’s the case, it’s simply impossible for the publishers of the declaration to know that it is supported by so-and-so ‘thousands’ of scientists — because it has set up an inherently opaque process that is beyond verification and is, of course, therefore, entirely unscientific.”

Ahmed continued: “The declaration certainly reflects the opinion of the 38 distinguished scientists who signed it, and the scientific merits of their claims surely should be debated. But it seems to be simple propaganda to claim that their opinion is supported by over 5,000 medical and public health scientists. And that is strong grounds to question why such a deceptive and unscientific process is being used to convince people that the declaration has wide scientific support. If it does, use a transparent and reliable vetting process.”

In response, Magness told the Washington Examiner that “rather than engaging with the scientific debate over the most serious public health crisis in our lifetime, lockdown supporters such as Nafeez Ahmed have resorted to submitting fraudulent signatures to the Great Barrington Declaration in an attempt to distract attention away from its message.”

“Such actions amount to academic misconduct, serving no other purpose than to manufacture a controversy out of Ahmed’s own admittedly deceitful and juvenile twitter antics,” Magness continued. “Despite the brazenness with which Ahmed admits and even boasts of his fraud, his efforts are for naught as the fictitious signatures he and his supporters generated were almost immediately removed and blocked. Sadly, his behavior only distracts from the pandemic at hand, showing that he’s willing to play politics when millions of human lives and livelihoods are at stake.”

Magness also pointed out that other “pro-lockdown” academics joined in on the “spam campaign.”

Magness’s colleague at the AIER pointed out another apparent attempt to discredit the study by tweeting an article suggesting the Guardian newspaper is engaging in an attempt to link supporters of the declaration to racism.

“Like clockwork, the smears are next,” AIER editorial director Jeffrey Tucker tweeted.

Tucker added that “perhaps 250 total” signatures have been fraudulent and that the “verification process is slow and difficult but the admins are doing their best.”

“The site was built not with a year of apparatus and planning but rather in one day,” Tucker told the Washington Examiner. “The support has been amazing. We estimate a 0.1% false positive rate, but we have also implemented controls mostly to protect against efforts like Ahmed’s.”

It was reported this week that the declaration, co-authored by Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Oxford professor Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford Medical School professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, had reached over 50,000 signatures.