In the absence of a national, coordinated, response to COVID-19, state and local representatives had to create and enforce individualized plans to protect their constituents. Alongside the challenge of trying to curb the virus, public health officials also had to contend with the spread of false information. This problematic content often contradicted safeguards, like masks, while promoting unverified and potentially lethal treatments. One of the most active groups denying the threat of COVID is The Reopen the States Movement. By combining qualitative content analysis with ethnographic observations of public ReOpen groups on Facebook, this paper provides a better understanding of the central narratives circulating among ReOpen members and the information they relied on to support their arguments. Grounded in notions of individualism and self-inquiry, members sought to reinterpret datasets to downplay the threat of COVID and suggest public safety workarounds. When the platform tried to flag problematic content, lack of institutional trust had members doubting the validity of the fact-checkers, highlight the tight connection between misinformation and epistemology.

在没有针对 COVID-19 的全国协调响应的情况下，州和地方代表必须制定和执行个性化计划来保护他们的选民。除了试图遏制病毒的挑战外，公共卫生官员还必须应对虚假信息的传播。这种有问题的内容通常与口罩等保障措施相矛盾，同时宣传未经证实且可能致命的治疗方法。重新开放国家运动是否认 COVID 威胁的最活跃团体之一。通过将定性内容分析与对 Facebook 上公共 ReOpen 群组的人种学观察相结合，本文提供了对 ReOpen 成员之间流传的中心叙述以及他们用来支持其论点的信息的更好理解。基于个人主义和自我探究的概念，成员们试图重新解释数据集以淡化 COVID 的威胁并提出公共安全解决方法。当该平台试图标记有问题的内容时，缺乏机构信任让成员怀疑事实核查员的有效性，凸显了错误信息与认识论之间的紧密联系。