Analysts are tracking false rumours about COVID-19 in hopes of curbing their spread.
In the first few months of 2020, wild conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and the new coronavirus began sprouting online. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist who has funded efforts to control the virus with treatments, vaccines and technology, had himself created the virus, argued one theory. He had patented it, said another. He’d use vaccines to control people, declared a third. The false claims quietly proliferated among groups predisposed to spread the message — people opposed to vaccines, globalization or the privacy infringements enabled by technology. Then one went mainstream.
There’s a second pandemic that has circled the globe. It isn’t a virus, but it imperils life, wastes precious resources and impairs efforts to deal with COVID-19. It is the misinformation, conspiracy theories and wild theories running rampant around the world. Dealing with both pandemics will require science, sober reason and commitment.
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Donovan charts the path of this piece of disinformation like an epidemiologist tracking the transmission of a new virus. As with epidemics, there are ‘superspreader’ moments. After the New York Post story went live, several high-profile figures with nearly one million Facebook followers each posted their own alarming comments, as if the story about Gates devising vaccines to track people were true.