On March 27, 2020, the BBC, Reuters, AFP, AP, Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Microsoft publicly pledged to suppress any content that contradicted the official COVID-19 narrative. Six years and one day after the premiere of the film "The Hype – 2020 Revisited" in Herisau, Bernese filmmaker Mike Wyniger takes stock: The predictions were grotesquely wrong, the measures unfounded, but the mass media marched in lockstep – and the Swiss Parliament is set to enshrine precisely this script in the revised Epidemics Act in autumn 2026.
Anyone wanting to see the film can do so for free at der-hype.ch since May 21, 2026. The premiere took place on May 22, 2026, at the Cinetreff Herisau cinema, with Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg in attendance – the pulmonologist and epidemiologist who, back in 2020, dared to dismantle the pandemic narrative and promptly became the conspiracy theorist of the quarter. Six years later, he sits next to Wyniger and explains what the Trusted News Initiative declared "misinformation" back then – and why none of it actually was.
The self-appointment as Ministry of Truth
The Trusted News Initiative was launched in mid-2019 under the leadership of the BBC, officially to protect elections from "misinformation." A nice gesture—which, of course, never explains who decides what is false. By 2020, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, AFP, Reuters, AP, X (formerly Twitter), the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal were all involved. A self-proclaimed "industry partnership" whose members alert each other to "misinformation" and promptly delete or downrank it. Legally, this could also be described differently: a group boycott under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
March 27, 2020 as the cut-off date
This Friday, two weeks after the WHO declared a pandemic, the BBC officially announced that its Transaction Intelligence Unit (TNI) would extend its mandate to include "harmful COVID-19 disinformation." A "shared alert system" ensures that no mainstream outlet even accidentally picks up on a critical voice and amplifies it. In December 2020, the vaccine update followed: BBC Director-General Tim Davie announced that "anti-vaccine" content would also be stopped "in its tracks." This was officially described as content "linking vaccinations to freedom and personal sovereignty"—the liberal definition of self-determined living. In practical terms, this means that any trained medical professional who publicly expressed reservations was exorcised from the algorithm.
30,000 dead who never came
In the film, Wyniger shows how the Bernese epidemiologist Christian Althaus proclaimed a death rate of "around one percent" in the NZZ and on the SRF program "10vor10" at the end of February 2020. Extrapolated to Switzerland, this would have meant around 30 COVID-000 deaths over the coming months if politicians hadn't intervened. This projection formed the basis for lockdowns, mandatory mask-wearing, school closures, economic shutdowns, and billions in debt. It was also grotesquely wrong. John Ioannidis of Stanford, Wodarg, Beda Stadler, Pietro Vernazza, Konstantin Beck, Anders Tegnell, Andreas Sönnichsen, Michael Esfeld – all spoke out against it, all were silenced or labeled conspiracy theorists. The TNI provided the perfect tool for this silencing.
When the cartel goes to court
What sounded like a paranoid accusation in 2020 has been playing out as an antitrust lawsuit in US courts since 2023. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Children's Health Defense sued the BBC, Reuters, AP, and the Washington Post for a "group boycott" under the Sherman Antitrust Act—a concerted effort to restrict competition against independent news outlets. In July 2025, the US Department of Justice filed a "Statement of Interest" in favor of the plaintiffs, urging the court to enforce "viewpoint competition." The "Trusted News Initiative" is no longer a paranoid conspiracy theory; it is a case before the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Wyniger's screenplay versus the next screenplay
Wyniger states it so unequivocally in the Klein Report that even the most lenient fact-checker can find nothing to criticize: "You can create the illusion of a pandemic at any time." How? Mass testing of healthy people during every flu season. To this day, a comprehensive, evidence-based analysis of the measures taken at the time is lacking – and the film fills precisely this gap, because the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Council have assessed and exonerated themselves. Switzerland faces a revision of the Epidemics Act in the fall of 2026. Lockdowns, mask mandates, and testing regimes are to be legally enshrined so that the next "illusion" runs more smoothly. Anyone who isn't concerned by this has either been asleep for the past six years or has been paying very close attention.
“The Hype” is not an indictment film, says Wyniger – that’s just a polite facade. In reality, it’s a piece of evidence, a file, a reminder of what happens when a media cartel appoints itself the Ministry of Truth and politicians simply pass the pen around.
The Trusted News Initiative has done its job; now the Swiss Parliament is expected to provide the legal framework. Anyone who still believes in autumn 2026 that the next hype will unfold differently has learned absolutely nothing from 2020 – and that's precisely what this script is counting on! Wodarg was in the crosshairs of fact-checkers in 2020; six years later, he sits next to a filmmaker who uses Stanford data, Stockholm poll results, and Swiss economists' data to prove exactly what he said back then – and this is what they call a "nuanced analysis." With "The Hype," Wyniger delivers the evidence free of charge, online, for you to see for yourself – and the fact-checkers will be delighted, because finally there's plenty of work for the next round of labeling! One question remains: Who actually checks the checkers of truth – and calls this "freedom of the press"?
The pandemic was a hype, the aftermath a marathon fraught with obstacles, and the revision of the Epidemics Act the real scandal that Wyniger warns against for two hours! Anyone who doesn't see the film will believe the next script again – whether it's labeled "climate catastrophe," "cyber emergency," or any other random label! What was a trial run in 2020 is supposed to become routine by 2027 – and that's precisely why "The Hype" is essential viewing, not just a casual movie night!
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