yyuryyub wrote:"I watched the said John Campbell a couple of times but gave up as I do not like those people who seem to think they know more than 'the authorities'"
I've never posted on any Covid message board and it's not a great interest of mine, but I couldn't let this stand unaswered.
I know little about John Campbell. While I heard his name mentioned favourably in the early days of COVID, including here on TLF I believe and I once had a short look at him to see for myself, I never followed him as I never felt the need. So, little personal experience of him myself (some people do seem to need/want a 'guru').
More recently I had noticed his name cropping up in connection with YouTube bans and suchlike - so assumed there had, over time, been some 'mission creep'! The Wikipedia entry on him confirmed this.
Why does this sort of thing happen? I have no idea; it is a real mystery! But happen it does.
My own benchmark for this was Mike Yeadon, who I originally learned of in a post on TLF. He was already getting into his stride then, with an article on 'Lockdown Sceptics'.
I followed his 'career' for a while after that, it proceeded much as expected (and as I predicted), until I got bored and gave up. By which point it was well crazy!
Others were watching him too. Reuters did a whole article on him:
The ex-Pfizer scientist who became an anti-vax herohttps://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-vaccines-skeptic/It's a strange tale, a genuine research scientist working for Pfizer. A competent and well-respected colleague. He left Pfizer, started a successful company which he sold and then retired - Is that when the rot set in? Originally, on his COVID Twitter account, he was reasonable enough hoping for a vaccine. Over time things started to change...
There are examples aplenty of this sort of thing on the Internet - not just the usual nut jobs but including respectable, serious scientists who 'went native'. It is a strange and remarkable phenomenon, which I still find incomprehensible. But it happens.