A "maelstrom of disinformation" fuelled an unprecedented level of "hate, hurt and harm" in last week's baby blood case, one expert says.
The case was in the High Court at Auckland last week after the parents refused to consent to the surgery if health authorities could not give them assurances that the blood products needed had not come from people who have had the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine.
A second set of parents is now seeking "unvaccinated blood" for their baby's heart surgery.
Asked about the original case, Sanjana Hattotuwa of the Disinformation Project told Breakfast: "I wouldn't use the word compelling, I would use the words disturbing, and very worrying, and positively chilling and frightening."
He added that the case was unprecedented in many ways.
"And that's also what's curious about it; the degree to which, on the one hand, the Parliament protests attracted a lot of attention but then this didn't," he said. "But this is as consequential, if not more so.
"It had the greatest, most significant escalation of hate, hurt and harm...every imaginable expletive was a daily deluge."
He said the Disinformation Project had never before recorded that level of hate towards judges, police, and medical personnel, adding that people tried to overwhelm Starship Hospital's phone lines.
"So on many levels, not just with regards to the baby in question and the case in question, our concern is that this sets a precedent and a template that will be adapted and adopted over the next year but also in the future as well."
And the story had greater resonance because it was a baby at the case's centre, Hattotuwa said.
"None of us want to see the baby harmed, but everybody's caught up in this maelstrom of disinformation that framed the case.
"There was a complete break from reality to a degree that we haven't studied, to a degree that I can't even articulate because that would be perpetuating some of those myths and some of that disinformation," he added.
Hattotuwa said the case was escalated when it featured on American conspiratorial disinformation platforms, and that key influential figures had "an inordinate impact". He compared these figures to black holes, "pulling in people with their disinformation narratives".
"This is not just about the specific baby, but it's about societal attitudes and it was hammering social cohesion.
"I can't tell you enough the degree to which I was worried."
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