CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” just took dead aim at Facebook for its role in spreading COVID vaccine disinformation.

In the show’s Monday-night cold open—posted overnight as a YouTube standalone video titled “If Only Facebook Had Existed During The Polio Vaccine Rollout” (below)—we first see a CNN clip of U.S. infectious diseases czar Dr. Anthony Fauci saying that “If we had the kind of false information that’s being spread now—if we had that back decades ago, I would be certain that we’d still have polio in this country.”

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Cue a promo spot for something called “The Facebook Variety Hour” and an old-timey announcer hyping the faux show’s polio vaccine coverage: “The polio vaccine continues its rollout. But what do we really know about it?” He ticks off a slew of conspiracy theories—e.g., the vaccine needles might be “made from the whiskers of Stalin’s mustache”; the vaccine contains miniature radio transmitters “so now the Cubans can track your children and use their hula hoops as missile targets”—before issuing a stern warning: “Don’t let Dr. Salk mind-control you!”

The spot’s sponsor, it turns out, is the National Association of Iron Lung Manufacturers.

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