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COVID-19 conspiracy theories: Twisted effort to bring order to chaos

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British arsonists who believe in a bizarre COVID-19 conspiracy theory have allegedly burned at least 20 cellphone towers that carry 5G, the fifth generation of wireless communications technologies.

They allegedly believe 5G spreads the novel coronavirus. They say it was designed as a secret weapon to spread the virus, and that the virus itself is a bio-weapon that will kill us all if someone doesn’t burn down the towers first.

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In one version, China has vaccinated its citizens and will soon broadcast a 5G signal that will activate the virus in everyone else and kill them instantly. (A prominent backer of the China theory, David Icke, also says that world leaders have been replaced by shape-shifting alien reptiles.)

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As the theories spread, telecom engineers in Britain are being threatened with violence.

YouTube has had to shut down videos about the alleged threat.

The British government is telling social media companies to do a better job of shutting down the “crackpot” theory, which circulates on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.

But the message is still spreading. The coronavirus is fertile ground for conspiracy theories and also for hoax miracle cures; several hundred people in Iran have died from drinking methanol (toxic industrial alcohol) believing it would protect them from infection.

It attracts these theories because of our search for certainty in troubled times, says Edwin Hodge, a sociologist who studies conspiracy theories at the University of Victoria.

“It is absurd,” he says of this and other conspiracy theories about major world events. “But that doesn’t matter. These events — coronavirus, 9/11, global financial collapse — all represent significant disruptions in our day-to-day routines.

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“With large-scale social disruption, it’s something you’re forced to deal with, and many people lack the requisite expertise or knowledge to fully understand all the complex variables behind these disruptions,” he said.

When an average person watches experts on TV with their modelling, forecasts and data, “you might not fully understand that. So you are in a position where you feel unmoored, uncertain. And the experts aren’t helping. But what you can understand are things that emerge from your own ideological orientation, your own world view.

“If you’re distrustful of the government, you might (say): ‘They’re lying to us. They know what’s really happening and they’re not telling us.’ That makes sense to you. And it’s more comforting.

“Conspiracy theories help the believer to impose order on a disordered universe.” Listening to the government message about staying home “is less comforting than saying: It’s the cell towers, and if we burn all the cell towers to the ground this will disappear,” he said.

“At its core, it is a way for people to have a sense of control, making sense of something that is chaotic,” said Alison Meek, a historian at King’s University College at Western University.

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The virus is invisible, “really scary.” But having someone to blame helps us deal with it.

The flip side is when a group does not believe the theory “but can use it to create fear, to spread disinformation to create a sense of chaos.”

Russian bots “are also pushing this for their own reasons. We know the Russians helped to spread the AIDS conspiracy theory. The Russians were among the first to push the JFK conspiracy theory.”

Meek believes that old-style anti-vaccine conspiracy theories will also have a role to play with coronavirus, persuading people not to get a coronavirus vaccine.

Groups are already spreading the theory that the coronavirus was engineered in order to make us all take a vaccine, and the vaccine will be a government plot to inject us with computer chips so that we can all be monitored.

“The bigger context for both of those groups is being anti-government which is such a big part of U.S. conspiracy theories.”

tspears@postmedia.com

twitter.com/TomSpears1

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