A Voice of America journalist Wenhao, who specialises in Chinese online disinformation, posted on X that the "biggest US related news on China's internet for the past few days is Texas governor declaring war with the federal government, which did not happen in reality".

When tragic events happen, social media quickly fills with rumors and fake stories.

Shatner is a celebrity, which means that he has outsized influence. That he would use his platform to lend credibility to such sites, spreading them to 2.5 million followers, could have terrible consequences. Shatner has made his support of vaccination very clear, but NaturalNews has tons of "articles" demonizing vaccinations--an example is a video titled "Vaccine Cannibalism Exposed." But there's an upside: The real-time tweeting of his thought process provides a helpful window into the practices of everyday intelligent people trying to figure out the truth. They Google, they find a few articles that confirm their biases, and they're done. No matter that the articles are on websites that spread virulent misinformation.