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Lewis Hamilton, his social media presence, and his critics have a long and complicated relationship.
Mistakenly sharing a post that suggested Bill Gates is a liar in his pursuit of a COVID-19 vaccination fits quite well into an anti-Hamilton narrative that gets easily, and often joyfully, twisted.
A long video in which Microsoft co-founder Gates discussed various elements of his foundation’s COVID-19 vaccine effort, including a direct rejection of a conspiracy theory that his company will implant something in the bodies of Americans to track them via 5G, was glibly branded a lie by a prominent internet personality, whose post was shared by Hamilton.
It stayed active for hours. Then, after realising what he had done, Hamilton deleted the post from his Instagram story and replaced it with a statement in which he put it down to carelessness, accepted it was “totally my fault”, praised Gates and insisted he was supportive of the quest to find an “important” vaccine in the fight against this virus.
“I may not always get my posting right, I’m only human but I’m learning as we go,” Hamilton said at the end of his statement.
That is something a lot of us can relate to. Where we diverge is Hamilton is doing that with a potential audience of more than 18million people on Instagram, so the mistakes are magnified and so are the consequences.
For a short while – but long enough for Hamilton’s re-sharing of the original post to have a decent circulation online – there was a suggestion that Hamilton was at best trying to discredit Gates and the COVID-19 vaccine, and at worst is anti-vaccination entirely.
That comes with two caveats. First, sharing doesn’t explicitly mean support. You’ll find plenty of Twitter accounts making that point very clear on their profile page. Second, Hamilton presented the re-post without further comment. It was wrong for anybody to draw a firm conclusion about Hamilton’s stance, and especially to declare him an anti-vaxxer.
But this is the danger of the combination of Hamilton’s direct control over his social media and his eagerness to shine a light on things that interest him. It isn’t the first time he has been duped by false information, as it follows his strong and public response to fake Dr Helmut Marko comments.
The risk in being negligent with his social media responsibility is that an enormous audience will be exposed to harmful or inaccurate content. Intent doesn’t impact the distribution of damaging information so in this regard it doesn’t matter whether Hamilton did it inadvertently or not.
It also won’t matter in terms of Hamilton being thought of as trigger-happy or inattentive on social media, which can undermine the impact of his social activism. There are already comments declaring this incident discredits his efforts to shine a light on racism, for example.
This is a nonsense position because even if Hamilton was anti-vaccination, being right about one thing and wrong about another doesn’t matter. But it will be a popular position among his critics.
Hamilton, to his credit, wants to use his social platform for good but that means he has a responsibility to ensure the veracity of what he shares. If mistakes like this become a pattern that does reflect badly on him.
Speaking of critics, though, this should also be a warning to them too. To respond to Hamilton’s swift, ill-judged social media action with the same achieves absolutely nothing.
Especially when, in this particular instance, Hamilton’s action is worlds apart from the likes of tennis star Novak Djokovic’s personal beliefs. Given Djokovic is a hugely famous individual and global sports personality, and is publicly anti-vaccine, there is an important contrast to be considered here.
Djokovic’s belief in spirituality and faith is so emphatic that he comes across as almost anti-science at times. He once told the Telegraph that he is “not a fan of surgeries or medications” because “I believe that our bodies are self-healing mechanisms”.
When he succumbed to having surgery on his elbow, he “cried for two or three days” because “every time I thought about what I did, I felt like I had failed myself”.
It was wrong and careless, but it doesn’t discredit Hamilton or turn him into a patron of fake news
Earlier this year he said he’d “have to make a decision” about whether he’d agree to a COVID-19 vaccine should it be mandatory for elite-level tennis to resume. He reiterated his anti-vaccine stance at the time.
In June, Djokovic and three other players went on to be diagnosed with the virus while playing in an exhibition tour across Croatia and Serbia arranged by the world number one.
Hamilton has shared a critical, implicitly anti-vaccine post apparently by mistake and made it very clear he is supportive of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Yes, he did a foolish thing and he’s got to learn from it because it can be harmful, but a position like Djokovic’s, for instance, is infinitely more dangerous when it comes to spreading misinformation because it is deliberate and shared with conviction.
Hamilton’s link to the anti-vaccination world was accidental and brief, he held his hands up quickly and emphasised a very different position.
It was wrong and careless, but it doesn’t discredit Hamilton or turn him into a patron of fake news.
If Hamilton wants others to see interesting, relevant content to enable them to learn more on a subject, or even just see what he has just seen, then there’s nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite.
He said that “after watching the video, I felt it showed that there is still a lot of uncertainty about the side effects most important[ly] and how it is going to be funded”, for example.
Had these sentiments been part of the original act of sharing, there’d be no issue. Only a positive: an engagement in the conversation and perfectly valid expression of opinion.
He should continue to lend his voice to public debate, just with a little more mindfulness. And when he does, it shouldn’t be undermined by this mistake.
