How did the 5G-Covid-19 conspiracy theory start? For instance, those people are going to take social distancing less seriously, Ted Goertzel, a retired sociologist at Rutgers University, tells Inverse. In turn, if people believe Covid-19 was created by a Deep State conspiracy or telecom companies obsessed with profits before people, it's a problem for everyone.
It may be more comforting to have an overarching agent dictating the severity of the virus than to acknowledge the world and humankind are overwhelmed by it, Sternisko tells Inverse. We need someone who is in control, says Anni Sternisko, a social psychology researcher at New York University. When times are hard, "people are motivated to find explanations that make sense of things." So, they see patterns that don't exist. Why people want to believe - Jay Van Bavel, a social psychologist at New York University, tells Inverse that it comes down to how people handle uncertainty. Some people falsely link coronavirus to a Bill Gates Foundation pandemic plot, while others trace the virus to China or United States-created bioweapons. The 5G conspiracy theory isn't the only conspiracy theory linked to this novel coronavirus. Then there's QAnon - the far-right American political group convinced there's a secret Deep State - the supporters of which say the health effects of Covid-19 are similar to the health effects of high-level electromagnetic radiation. The Daily Beast has done the unglamorous chore of documenting the madness. There are more: Keri Hilson (read more on that below), "Paper Planes" singer M.I.A., and others, have used their sizable audiences to create panic over something without evidence. The petition and the tweet have been deleted, but not before The Register published this memorable report in its characteristically searing style. Back in the UK, Amanda Holden, best-known as a judge on Britain's Got Talent, shared a link to a petition with her 2 million Twitter followers, calling for more attention to be paid to the idea that 5G is driving Covid-19. Although they are thoroughly entertaining for their predictable conspiracy video traits - an authoritative, confident-sounding male narrator acting with a sense of justice, for you, an intelligent, curious skeptic - the theories in these videos are easy to deflate for those who don't already have a bent to believe.Ĭelebrities like Woody Harrelson say "the negative effects of 5G" are something worth considering, when talking about coronavirus.
YouTube videos like this one posit that Covid-19 quarantines were put into place so the government can secretly install 5G technology.
While the arson (more on that below) and threats against telecom engineers literally just working on antennas have been in the UK, claims that 5G can cause harm are not limited to Britain.
If not that, then that 5G mysteriously hastens the transmission of the virus. It all can be traced back to a strange, baseless theory that emerged in February: that 5G wireless networks caused the Covid-19 pandemic. In other words, it's a conspiracy theory. The reasons for it are at once bizarre, extremely big-if-true, and without any evidence. Since last Thursday, more than 20 cell phone towers in the United Kingdom have been vandalized or set on fire.