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Of all the disinformation about #COVIDー19 (Tons of it) this 5G conspiracy is the most interesting to me so far. This disinformation spread quickly & resulted in physical mobilizations inside the audience attacking essential capability in pandemic https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html?referringSource=articleShare
5G conspiracy has 3 key elements: hidden forces, health scare (real this time) & new technology. Remember last decade when we were all going to get brain tumors from talking on our cell phones? Difference then - no pandemic & far less social media penetration to spread fears
Remarkable about 5G/COVID19 conspiracies is people are destroying costly infrastructure 1) critical to #COVIDー19 response 2) essential to sustaining and kick starting economy. 1 conspiracy about pandemic makes it exponentially harder handle pandemic. What if telecom goes down?
Part of reason (but not all) that 5G conspiracies able to flourish quickly w/Covid19 is seeds 5G health disinformation were planted before pandemic. Remember year ago Russia pushed wave 5G/Health conspiracies https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-health-russia.amp.html
Here’s Rick Sanchez on RT (Russia Today) January 2019 laying some ground work for 5G health conspiracies & even linking the brain tumor conspiracy as a 4G problem https://www.facebook.com/RTAmerica/videos/330272074488725/?vh=e
foreign disinformation peddlers working against democracies 5G- health disinformation = homerun if flourishes. Fear based message (calamitous), harms opponents infrastructure advancement, R&D, companies (financial), taxes gov response, undermines trust institutions (political)
5G/COVID-19 conspiracies travel fast because appeals many audiences. Traditional values folks despise societal change due to tech. Parents fearful hidden health dangers, tech utopia transparency advocates sensing a miss, laborers pushed out of work by automation
Last point- covid19 conspiracies spreading in general because people are rightfully scared and we all are at home with access to social media more than normal. Fear + time + no control + everyone can be an unfiltered printing press
