A woman who says she suffered chronic health complications after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine claims to have been censored from sharing her story on Facebook.
Caroline Pover, 52, received the jab in March 2021 and within nine hours, experienced convulsions, shivering, breathing difficulties and low blood pressure.
Ms Pover, of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, says she was hospitalised when her condition escalated to ‘stroke-like’ symptoms, in addition to exhaustion, breathing difficulties, a racing heart and migraines.
Her story was shared in a national newspaper in March last year as she and 800 other victims struggled to claim the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS).
But after sharing the link on her Facebook feed at the start of this year, Ms Pover says the website put a warning notice on her account.
Caroline Pover, 52, received the jab in March 2021 and says that within nine hours, experienced convulsions, shivering, breathing difficulties and low blood pressure
Ms Pover says that over time, the censorship led her to develop a specific writing style that would help prevent posts from being flagged up
Ms Pover’s Facebook account was given a warning, allegedly after she posted a newspaper article detailing her difficult experiences with the AstraZeneca vaccine
‘It’s a ridiculous situation for vaccine injured people, who have a right to information,’ said Ms Pover
Ms Pover, herself a freelance journalist and entrepreneur, said: ‘My posts about what was happening to me started having FB “notes” appearing underneath them about vaccination.
‘A group page I was an admin on was shut down completely by Facebook in the summer of 2021.
‘When I posted the Daily Express article, which did an excellent job of not discussing anything pro or anti… I received a warning and the post was hidden.
‘It’s a ridiculous situation for vaccine-injured people, who have a right to information.
‘If this was an online support group relating to cancer or another type of serious condition, we’d be outraged at the thought of it being censored and we’d be very sensitive to people having to navigate a very complicated health situation.’
READ MORE: ‘VACCINE VICTIMS’ CLAIM THEY WERE PREVENTED FROM SPEAKING OUT
Ms Pover said she made her first post about vaccine side effects on March 3, 2021, shortly after receiving a Covid jab.
She said: ‘In the week that followed I was posting about my health and I always thought I’d be fine the next day.
‘After a few weeks, I noticed that little notes from Facebook were appearing whenever I posted anything relating to the vaccine.’
Ms Pover claims she was subsequently ‘shadow banned’ on Facebook and that often, her posts failed to appear in the timelines of her friends and family.
She said: ‘People would tag me in posts and complain that they weren’t getting any traction. I’d say to them, “don’t tag me, it will just disappear if you do.”‘
Ms Pover says that over time, the censorship led her to develop a specific writing style that would help prevent posts from being flagged up.
She has now decided to write a book about people receiving adverse reactions from Covid jabs.
And she says that her experiences with censorship have only made her even more determined to share her message.
Ms Pover said: ‘The physical health struggles we face aren’t just what happens in the minutes, hours or days immediately after injection; it’s what we are still dealing with years later, as well as the impact of being censored.’
Facebook has been approached for comment.
Elsewhere on the platform, UK CV Family – a private Facebook group with over 1,000 members for those who claim they were left injured or bereaved by the Covid vaccines – has had to take steps to avoid being shut down.
The group began in November 2021 Charlet Crichton, 42, after she suffered an adverse reaction from the AstraZeneca jab after it was given to her while she was volunteering at a vaccination centre in Folkestone, Kent.
The bad reaction led Ms Crichton to become bed bound for weeks and has since been forced to give up her Sports Therapy business which she ran for 13 years.
She told the paper: ‘I set up the group because I was finding people online in the UK like me. And we felt we didn’t have anyone to talk to about it apart from each other.’
The Facebook group is now one of three online groups for those bereaved by the vaccine to have been granted core-participant status in the Covid Inquiry.
A father-of-two is in the process of suing the pharmaceutical giant at the High Court in London over the injury, while the widower of a woman who died from the jab has also brought a claim to the court. Pictured: Doses of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine
This means Ms Crichton, who claims she suffered from myocarditis following the jab, and other members of the group will be able to give evidence throughout the statutory process.
In the page’s description it stresses that it is ‘not anti-vax’ and asks participants to ‘refrain from posting anything that suggests otherwise’.
‘We very quickly learned that we had to self censor, otherwise we’d be shut down,’ she added, explaining that her own comments had previously be blocked ‘to prevent misuse’.
On one occasion Ms Critchon said her account was even banned after Meta claimed it did not meet its standards, while she claims others have been shadow banned – meaning individuals posts are hidden – over their comments.
‘It’s very, very difficult because we want to talk about what we’re going through,’ she added.
On a separate occasion, YouTube tried to censor a video of lawyers giving evidence at the Covid Inquiry about the vaccines. The streaming giant said the clip was a violation of ‘medical misinformation policy’.
The paper also said that footage of Stephen Bowie, a member of the Scottish Vaccine Injury Group who suffered a spinal stroke and blood clots following the jab, was also flagged with a similar warning.
Molly Kingsley, the co-founder of Us4Them, said the restrictions put in place by social media platforms were ‘Orwellian’ after her views by the Government’s Counter Disinformation Unit were allegedly criticsed by YouTube.
AstraZeneca said in a statement: ‘Patient safety is our highest priority and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines.
‘Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems.
‘From the body of evidence in clinical trials and real-world data, Vaxzevria has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.
‘The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) has granted full marketing approval for Vaxzevria for the UK based on the safety profile and efficacy of the vaccine.’
has contacted Meta and YouTube for comment.
- Have YOU been censored on social media from talking about your Covid experiences? Email [email protected].