Last month, Dr. Robert Honeyman lost their sister to Covid. They wrote about it on Twitter and received dozens of condolences, over 4,000 retweets and 43,000 likes.
Exactly one month later, on Dec. 12, Honeyman wrote that another tragedy had befallen their family.
“Sad to announce that my husband has entered a coma after being in hospital with Covid. The doctor is unsure if he will come out,” they tweeted. “This year has been the toughest of my life losing my sister to this virus. This is the first time in my life I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Again, the condolences and well-wishes rolled in. But there was a problem: Honeyman wasn’t real.
The transgender “Doctor of Sociology and Feminist studies” with a “keen interest in poetry” who used they/them pronouns was, in fact, a stock photo described on DepositPhotos, a royalty-free image site, as “Smiling happy, handsome latino man outside—headshot portrait.”
Their supposedly comatose husband, Dr. Patrick C. Honeyman, was also fake. His Twitter photo had been stolen from an insurance professional in Wayne, Indiana.
Sources:
- December 13, 2022. Matthew Kupfer. “These Doctors Pushed Masking, Covid Lockdowns on Twitter. Turns Out, They Don’t Exist.” The San Francisco Standard.
https://sfstandard.com/technology/these-doctors-pushed-masking-covid-lockdowns-on-twitter-turns-out-they-dont-exist/.
General Website Link. - January 9, 2023. Clayton Morris. NOT REAL! Fake Doctors Caught Pushing Vaccine in Psy-Op Campaign | Redacted with Clayton Morris. Redacted News.
https://rumble.com/v24oguq-not-real-fake-doctors-caught-pushing-vaccine-in-psy-op-campaign-redacted-wi.html.
Video. - January 13, 2023. Matthew Kupfer. “How a Fake Doctor Stoked Outrage and Fooled the Right Wing.” The San Francisco Standard.
https://sfstandard.com/technology/how-a-fake-twitter-doctor-fueled-covid-outrage-and-fooled-the-right-wing/.
General Website Link.