Conspiracy theory videos on link between 5G and Covid-19 restricted on Internet

Since the outbreak of the life-threatening virus, world-wide microbiologists, epidemiologists, and infectious disease specialists are trying to track the origin and nature of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the infectious disease COVID-19. As these researchers are trying to explore the biological reason to its origin, a different set of theorists are trying to associate the cause of the pandemic to 5G.

Reports from leading international dailies and magazines mention that conspiracy theorists are trying to frame the origin and spread of the disease to the high-intensity radiation emitted by towers that transmit the 5G spectrum. A common link that the rumor mongers are highlighting is that Wuhan is both the first place to have an identified coronavirus case and the first city to turn on wide-scale 5G networks.

The reports indicate that there are about three groups of speculators or theorists who have been arguing that 5G causes COVID-19 or the symptoms of COVID-19. In fact, some of the believers of this conspiracy theory even deny the existence of any virus at all.

One group has been co-relating 5G to a biological weapon and another believes that 5G can be used for global depopulation. However, none of these theories and the co-relations have so far been substantiated medically or through any published scientific paper. There is no researched inference from scientific studies that can say that 5G affects the immune system.

Some time back, a conspiracy theorist’s interview on the association between 5G and COVID-19 was streamed live on YouTube and was viewed by over 65,000 people. Following this streaming, in early April, at least 20 cell towers in the United Kingdom were purposely damaged or destroyed over a four-day period. The reason for this vandalization was attributed to the theory that alleges the link between 5G equipment and the COVID-19 outbreak.

UK Telecom regulator Ofcom released a statement on this vandalism. The statement read: “There have been reports of 5G masts in some areas of the UK being vandalized and of telecoms engineers being harassed by members of the public. This is because some people incorrectly blame 5G for being linked to the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). We would like to emphasize that there is no relationship, whatsoever, between 5G mobile signals and the Coronavirus.”

The statement further pointed out that vandalism to mobile phone masts meant disruption in other services using those masts. “These services could include 3G, 4G, and mobile call services. This means people can’t call the emergency services or contact their family. It could also mean that some of the communications equipment used by the emergency services is unable to work properly,” The company stated.

In view of this vandalization, YouTube had announced that it will reduce the exposure videos which promote 5G as some sort of cause or accelerator of the Coronavirus. According to YouTube, the conspiracy theories would be labeled as borderline content. Such content accounts for less than 1% of the videos available on YouTube, and while it will remain on the platform, removing it from the recommendation engine will make it much more difficult to find.