death threats After a tweet about the amoxicillin shortage, Franck Clarot, alias@Le_Doc, a very active doctor on Twitter, received hundreds of messages from threats
Doctor Franck Clarot has received hundreds of messages of insults and death threats. — Jaap Arriens/Sipa USA/SIPA
- After responding in a humorous tone to a tweet about the amoxicillin shortage, Dr. Franck Clarot, forensic pathologist and radiologist in Rouen, received hundreds of messages, including insults and death threats.
- Since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, this specialist, a popular science figure on his Twitter @Le_Doc account, has become the target of anti-vaccine.
- Alerting to the increase in cyberbullying against scientists, doctors call on public authorities to act.
“She will be for you this guillotine doctor Franck Clarot””… For several days, it’s been a flood of messages of insults and death threats received by Franck Clarot, alias@Le_Doc, figure of popularization on Twitter. A digital raid that began after an exchange on the shortage of amoxicillin between the doctor and the Franco-British actress Béatrice Rosen.
On December 4, the chronicler of the ;&mission Do not touch; my jobfrom Cyril Hanouna posts a message on his Twitter account: “I have just visited three pharmacies to buy amoxicillin for children. They all tell me: NATIONAL SHORTAGE! (…) We go back to the Middle Ages for EVERYTHING”. A few minutes later, the forensic pathologist-radiologist, figure of popular science on Twitter, posted a response, in a humorous tone: “I remember the first father well. amoxicillin nuria around 1350, already at the factories had problems and we talked about it; on Twitter”.
“Informing doesn”t deserve hanging”
But with 80,000 subscribers, Béatrice Rosen launches, despite her, a large-scale cyberbullying against Doctor Franck Clarot. “Bag “ medicine shit”, “a jerk and a pervert”, “corrupted by Pfizer, Moderna & Co”, “an odious vassal of pharmaceutical companies” ;… Under the radiologist’s tweet, there are hundreds of similar messages that have been posted. posted, some even directly referencing the doctor’s disability: “It’s a disability” in a wheelchair… He wants to life so he takes revenge behind his keyboard to hurt others!” Other messages even promise him the guillotine.
Voici vos followers pic.twitter.com/7cL0RX7NeT
— Le___Doc (@DrFranckClarot)
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If Béatrice Rosen did not personally threaten Franck Clarot, she n’a, “à no moment, of ́noncé this violence and threats, uttered below his series of tweets. On the contrary, she added it”, stoking the fire and hatred of her followers”, the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML) protested in a press release ; published on December 5. The columnist, she reacted this Wednesday indicating that she “does not condone or accept any threat, any violence, whether towards me or others”, can we read on her account Twitter. For his part, Doctor Franck Clarot filed a three complaints for death threats to the dedicated unit; to the fight against online hate from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Je ne cautionne ni n’accepte aucune menace, aucune violence, qu’elle soit envers moi ou autrui.
Je n’accepte pas non plus les injures publiques et les diffamations simples ou répétées à mon égard.
L’état de droit doit prévaloir et les procédures suivre leur cours.— Beatrice Rosen (@Beatrice_Rosen)
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It must be said that the doctor begins almost to be used to digital raids. Since the start of the health crisis, he has regularly published long threads to explain the importance of wearing a mask and the vaccination campaign in favor of which he is committed. Messages that have earned him repeated death threats from “the anti-mask, anti-health pass and anti-vaccine communities”. “I try to protect people, to explain to them what is best according to the data of science. Informing is not a crime, çit does not deserve the hanging or the guillotine”, he pleads.
And the Rouen radiologist is far from being the only one. Since the start of the health crisis, scientists have been increasingly attacked on social networks: “We are a dozen doctors on Twitter – like Jérôme Marty or Mathias Wargon – to being seriously attacked, always by the same disinformation groups,” he laments.
“Amoxicillin is their neighbor fight”
You have to go back to the very beginning of the coronavirus epidemic to understand the genesis of this cyberbullying, and more particularly in the spring of 2020 when the government made wearing a mask compulsory. “”Doctors have been pleading for this obligation for weeks and challenging the public authorities. When the government finally made masks compulsory, we became collaborators,” free decine (UFML).
The situation escalated a few weeks later after the publication of the study Didier Raoult, praising the use of hydroxychloroquine, yet decried by his colleagues. But the apogee, according to J&érôme Marty, is the introduction of compulsory vaccination: “From that moment on, it’s become anything . The vaccine was said to be dangerous, that it kills, that it was an injection of a 5G chip and that the doctors who defended it were participating in a new world order conspiracy. Amoxicillin is their next fight.”
La pénurie de certains antibiotiques… NousSachons ! pic.twitter.com/U0YlffDqMu
— Le___Doc (@DrFranckClarot)
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For doctors, the consequences of this cyberbullying go beyond threats, endangering the rest of the population: “The anti-vax and anti-mask groups cannot continue”̀ to endanger the populations, and especially the most fragile, by pouring out their unfounded words and their criminal disinformation,” the UFML. “Their goal is to silence us,çit makes health messages invisible.” that we are trying to convey,” adds Franck Clarot.
Nous Sachons Encore pic.twitter.com/gChpi5sEn6
— Le___Doc (@DrFranckClarot)
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A drama “sooner or later”
Now, according to the radiologist, some scientists, victims of digital raids, censor themselves or no longer dare to speak, fearing reprisals. If Jérôme Marty continues to express himself on social networks and in the media despite threats, he was forced to hire a bodyguard for several months in 2021. The GP jumped the step after receiving repeated anonymous calls to his cabinet and having seen his home address disseminated. “We have reached the stage where the idea is not to know if there will be a new Samuel Paty, but when” 30,000 hate messages some weekends.
Believing that there will be “a tragedy sooner or later”, Jérôme Marty calls on the public authorities to react. Yet in September 2021, after a new campaign of threats against doctors, the government promised to act against this cyberbullying. “There is a firmness absolute. Whenever there are events like this, there is an investigation to identify the perpetrators so that they are severely punished and sanctioned. We will never allow this type of act to pass,” Gabriel Attal, ` government spokesman at the time. A year later, the situation has not changed, deplore J&rôme Marty and Franck Clarot. “Absolutely nothing happened. This silence from the public authorities is very embarrassing,” believes the radiologist.
Especially since the situation should not improve either with the arrival of ;Elon Musk at; the head of Twitter. While the billionaire has drastically reduced moderation teams and advocates freedom of total expression, scientists fear a drastic increase in hate content. “In the past few weeks, it’s even worse. Since the arrival of Elon Musk, this community grew wings, they know there are no limits,” he warns.