Even actor Woody Harrelson has succumbed to the baseless hoax that cellphone infrastructure is spreading the coronavirus.
New Agers, right-wingers, and QAnon conspiracy theorists think global elites are using 5G to spread the coronavirus pandemic.
The paranoia about 5G — the industry term for the fifth generation of wireless communications infrastructure — has risen for the last few years, but as the world battles the pandemic, a baseless hoax has spread that the technology that runs cellphones could secretly be causing the outbreak.
On Wednesday, actor Woody Harrelson posted about the conspiracy theory on his Instagram, writing, “a lot of my friends have been talking about the negative effects of 5G.” On Thursday, a 5G tower in Birmingham, England, went up in flames after a local Facebook group was flooded with anti-5G comments. (Local authorities said that it could have possibly been an electrical issue, but are awaiting further information before investigating.)
The ever-changing nature of the global pandemic has meant that groups like New Agers, right-wingers, and conspiracy theorists, along with other misinformation communities, are both seeing huge internet traffic and need to reinvent their belief systems to fit the outbreak. These parallel news cycles give their followers a twisted, but orderly, sense of control in a genuinely chaotic moment.