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#Conspiracy Theories are the religion of the Internet. Prophets, priests, congratulations, churches sacred texts & divine truths all play their part in the spread of these contemporary theologies. Now more than ever. #Thread 1/
#Covid19 has accelerated the distribution & acceptance of these ideas, further undermining societal trust in institutions and systems. This thread provides an overview of the conspiracies proliferating during the #Coronavirus pandemic 2/
“Virus Nagationism”. Professional conspiracy theorists David Icke and Alex Jones deny Covid-19 exists, insisting that it is a ploy by the “globalist elite” to take away freedoms. https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/covid-top-10-current-conspiracy-theories/ 3/
Typically this style of rhetoric began as a suggestion that the virus was “no worse than a flu”, but quickly became pretext for more elaborate theories about 5G, vaccines and depopulation programmes. 4/
#Filmyourhospital Initiated by “coronavirus deniers” at the end of March to encourage people to visit local hospitals to take pictures and videos to prove that the COVID-19 pandemic is an elaborate hoax” https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theorists-are-falsely-claiming-that-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-an-elaborate-hoax-135985 5/
Hospitals often looked empty because severe cases of coronavirus were in secure reanimation units & waiting rooms were deliberately kept clear to prevent infection risk. This was positioned as proof of inexistence. 6/
#WuhanLaboratory : This conspiracy theory suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is a bio-weapon developed in a Chinese lab. It started on Jan 30th when retired professor Francis Boyle was interviewed on Geopolitics & Empire, a conspiracies-inspired YouTube channel. 7/
The professor made vague assumptions, speculated and admitted he didn’t know much about the epidemic but the channel manipulated the content so the professor’s speech would sound high fidelity. 8/ https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/03/06/le-coronavirus-arme-biologique-le-vrai-du-faux-d-une-video-virale_6032098_4355770.html
This theory has been thoroughly disproved. Richard Ebright, professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University: "There is nothing in the genomic sequence of this virus that indicates that it could have been created by genetic engineering 9/ https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/03/06/le-coronavirus-arme-biologique-le-vrai-du-faux-d-une-video-virale_6032098_4355770.html
#5G One of the most popular theories is that 5G causes or exacerbates the virus. The theory started with a video of Dr. Thomas Cowan at the Summit of Health and Human Rights in Tucson, Arizona on March 12, 2020 10/ https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/la-tecnologia-5g-no-es-la-causa-del-nuevo-coronavirus
Cowan is an American doctor who is on disciplinary probation. He claims that the coronavirus pandemic was caused by 5G technology. Cowan has no supporting evidence for this belief. The source of his theory is an Austrian Occultist Rudolph Steiner https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/fact-check-viral-video-coronavirus-1.5506595
Comment by @atelier researcher @NathalieBcht. “Conspiracies grow in the fertile ground of confusion. Dr. Cowan exploited that when using the trope of “technology is bad for your health”. He leveraged research on the impact of cellphone to fuel people’s existing fears”
This theory flourished & created a number of distinct tributaries including Covid doesn’t kill people, 5G does. The claim appeared as a Facebook post (archived http://archive.is/WqniH ) on March 31, 2020, under the false title "FORMER VODAFONE BOSS BLOWS WHISTLE ON 5G:CORONAVIRUS
It stated: “All that's occurring around the world is a reaction to human bodies to the electrification of the universe through 5G towers...This is what is causing this pandemic. This is the largest global cover-up in history” 14/ https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/04/Fact-Check-Coronavirus-NOT-Caused-By-5G-Tech-Created-By-Telecommunications-Giants.html
One of the most famous 5G posts was published on Facebook by William Claxton on April 5, 2020 (archived http://archive.is/ZupG6 ) . Despite all the inaccuracies, his publication generated more than 1,800 shares on the platform in a day.
The post states that #pandemic was a fraud to allow for the deployment of 5G network towers and that the vaccine will include an RFID chip that will give the government total access to your data. 16/
This is an example of how one conspiracy theory can gain credibility by leveraging a preexisting theory, in this instance vaccine hesitancy. The synergy between theories creates coherence where before there was none. 17/
#Billgates is funding research into a vaccine. This has resulted in a spate of theories designed to undermine the vaccine by suggesting it contains a microchip that is going to be used to monitor people via 5G network. 18/
According to a @mmfa investigation, this all started with a YouTube video. posted on March 17th by a conspiracy channel named High Frequency Radio, the video introduces the AgendaID2020 program, the govt tracking conspiracy. 19/
On that day, conspiracy theory platform Infowars published a video suggesting Gates was using the situation to “reduce the world’s population.” It cited invisible ink, & color-coded wristbands to be used for traveling Americans during a lockdown https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/bill-gates-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-spread-social-media-and-then-fox-news
Why Bill Gates? In 2015, Gates gave a TED Talk suggesting that the next great threat to humanity would be pandemics Conspiracy theories took his foresight to mean foreplanning. 21/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/technology/bill-gates-virus-conspiracy-theories.html
The Gates Foundation has worked extensively on health and epidemic risks including funding a MIT program to create invisible ink to help medical staff detect who has been vaccinated against a virus. 22/
Additionally, Gates “participated in a Reddit AMA, where he suggested a “national tracking system” for the coronavirus and “some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.” 23/ https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/bill-gates-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-spread-social-media-and-then-fox-news
In tandem, the UN has been working on a digital identity proposition to provide ID to 1 billion undocumented people. This project is called ID 2020. 24/
Conspiracy theorists amalgamated these facts to construct a falsehood suggesting that Gates was a public financier of a global depopulation plan. 25/ 1) https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/may/03/blog-posting/no-bill-gates-did-not-outline-2018-plan-depopulate/ 2) https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/bill-gates-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-spread-social-media-and-then-fox-news
The depopulation theory got weirder still when an radical christian group called SavingHealthMinistries shared a sensationally inaccurate video suggesting that Gate’s depopulation plan is supported by the Vatican. 26/ https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/03/fact-check-no-plan-by-bill-gates-and-the-vatican-to-depopulate-world-with-coronavirus-vaccine-video-misinterprets-gates-speech.html
The theory went global. As usual it was Facebook that facilitated the unrestricted distribution of dangerous falsehoods. 27/
In Croatia a picture was shared by conspiracy Facebook group Matrix World that said “If we do a really good job through new vaccines, health care and family planning services, we could reduce the global population by some 10 to 15%” 28/ https://faktograf.hr/2020/01/27/bill-gates-nije-razvio-novi-koronavirus/
In Lithuanian conspiracy website http://minfo.lt , run by self-taught psychotherapist Marius Gabrilavičius, published an article and a video explaining the depopulation program supported by Bill Gates 29/ https://www.15min.lt/naujiena/aktualu/lietuva/samoksla-del-uhano-koronaviruso-tresia-melu-ir-prastu-duomenu-supratimu-56-1270922
The most famous piece of Covid19 conspiracy content is the Plandemic video, a modern day 26 minute testament to deception & deceit first posted to on May 4, 2020. Starring in the video is discredited former medical researcher Judy Mikovits 30/ https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-220bab78-9024-4209-ab2d-6daeb97427be.html
There is overlap between those driving these theories & QAnon. QAnon refers to a group of people who were fooled into believing a massively complex & pervasive deep state conspiracy in the U.S by a semi-literate troll posting anonymous messages on an internet message board /31
QAnon are a primarily 8chan based radical right wing, radical chistian, radical radicals who believe, among other things, that Trump is waging a secret war against a deep state controlled by satan-worshiping democratic peodiphiles. 32/ https://www.deccanchronicle.com/technology/in-other-news/180420/fake-news-that-covid-19-is-a-hoax-un-depopulating-earth-are-spreading.html
They're responsible for 1 of the wildest theories to have emerged:That “the pandemic is masking a military operation to rescue thousands of deformed “mole children” from the clutches of sex traffickers in underground tunnels beneath medical tents recently erected in Central Park”
#GMOs Establish credibility through preexisting theories was evident when attorney Francesco Billota penned a bizarre article for Il Manifesto, falsely claiming that GM crops cause genetic pollution that allows viruses to proliferate due to the resulting environmental imbalance
Anti-biotech activists such as Vandana Shiva, linked GMO soy to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic 35/ https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/04/01/viewpoint-anti-gmo-activist-vandana-shiva-says-gmo-soy-caused-the-covid-19-pandemic-heres-why-shes-wrong/
Many of us laugh at the ridiculousness of conspiracy theories and condescend to those who subscribe to them but only 4 in 10 Americans believe it came about naturally. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/08/nearly-three-in-ten-americans-believe-covid-19-was-made-in-a-lab/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=9a8a1fc2a0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_09_06_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-9a8a1fc2a0-400906701
Here we stand, at the dawn of a new decade, and belief in conspiracy theories is the highest they’ve ever been. We find ourselves unable to agree on rudimentary and established truths like the moon landing, climate change or the holocaust https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/study-shows-60-of-britons-believe-in-conspiracy-theories
So how then do we begin to solve for the complex issues of inequality, race, sexuality, migration in an increasingly globalised society when we can’t even agree on the spherical nature of the earth 38/41
Conspiracies theories are not the problem. They are symptoms of an underlying illness. A cancerous decay of trust in the institutions of the state, enterprise & the press. Brought about by disenfranchisement & loss of hope.
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The only way to stop the spread of conspiracy theories in the free market western world is to reduce inequalities & increase social mobility. Until that happens, conspiracies will increase in number, frequency & extremism until we reach the point where systems become unworkable
Thank you, as always to @NathalieBcht for her help researching this topic. As part of our project to consider the impact of the pandemic over the next decade we’ve looked at a range of topics including vice, domestic violence & this one on #privacy https://twitter.com/iamjohnegan/status/1249952437429063681?s=20
