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amiya and myrtle (arknights) drawn by acrylicstroke

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    #1
    COVID-19 is spreading in many countries that do not have 5G mobile networks.

    COVID-19 is spread through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. People can also be infected by touching a contaminated surface and then their eyes, mouth or nose.

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    GabrielWB
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    NWF_Renim said:

    To imagine that several cellular towers were the target of arson in the UK because of this conspiracy theory.

    It's fucking insane.

    Even here in the Netherlands, about a dozen towers have been targeted with arson. Worst part is that we are still rolling out 5G tech at the moment so several of those were just regular 4G/3G/2G towers.

    Idiots.

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    • NWF Renim
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    Blindga said:

    This is madness. How could people believe this? A virus caused by a network sounds like something out of science fiction. Have these people gone insane?

    It’s a rehash of the belief that the electromagnetic waves from these things are making people sick. How it could transmit a virus doesn’t even really enter the equation, it’s just the new sickness they can blame on the these towers.

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    • NegativeSoul
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    Blindga said:

    This is madness. How could people believe this? A virus caused by a network sounds like something out of science fiction. Have these people gone insane?

    When there are people who want to exploit the fear and anger of certain other groups of people you end up with stupidity like this. They're looking for a boogeymen monster to blame their problems on instead of understanding that this pandemic is an unfortunate reality of the world. Doesn't mean we can't make it better, but we also must accept the losses that come with it. And also unfortunately you'll also find people who love to make the situation worse for their own gain, even if it makes not a lick of sense to do so.

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    • RNGCombo
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    NegativeSoul said:

    When there are people who want to exploit the fear and anger of certain other groups of people you end up with stupidity like this.

    I've always wondered if there's any way to actually locate these people. Not the ones who post videos with their real faces or tweets with their personal accounts but people who create the fake alerts that get circulated. Would be interesting to discover and expose their real identities.

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    • Ramen God
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    Blindga said:

    This is madness. How could people believe this? A virus caused by a network sounds like something out of science fiction. Have these people gone insane?

    In the 1990's, there were court cases filed under the assertion that cellphones causes cancer.

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    • NWF Renim
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    A_Lurker said:

    Aren’t Chinese companies handling a lot of 5g tower business? If so, then the thought process of these people may be: 5g towers -> Chinese company -> Covid-19 starting and not being contained initially in China.

    You'd think so and that'd make some degree of logic, but as I understand it the conspiracy theory actually claims Wuhan got COVID-19 because they had 5G towers installed not that long ago.

    The thing to understand is this is actually a 5G conspiracy that is latching onto the whole COVID-19 hysteria. The bogeyman is 5G, coronavirus is just another excuse to blame the bogeyman.

    From NY Times

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html

    Wild claims about 5G are not new. The technology has an outsize political importance because it may provide countries with a competitive edge, with faster wireless speeds enabling more rapid development of driverless cars and other innovations.

    Internet trolls have seized on 5G and its political implications to sow fear, leading to protests in the United States and elsewhere against the technology in recent years. Russians have pushed claims that 5G signals were linked to brain cancer, infertility, autism, heart tumors and Alzheimer’s disease, all of which lacked scientific support.

    In January, as the coronavirus rippled through Wuhan, China, and beyond, it provided new fodder for anti-5G trolls. On Jan. 19, a post on Twitter speculated on a link between 5G and the disease, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company that studied 699,000 mentions of the conspiracy this year through April 7.

    “Wuhan has 5,000+ #5G base stations now and 50,000 by 2021 — is it a disease or 5G?” the tweet said.

    On Jan. 22, an article on a Belgium news website included a comment from a physician claiming that 5G was harmful to people’s health. Though it did not specifically mention the coronavirus, the doctor mentioned a possible “link with current events.” The article, later deleted by the publisher, reached as many as 115,000 people, according to CrowdTangle, a tool that analyzes interactions across social media.

    By last month, 5G-coronavirus claims on the web and television were rising, according to Zignal Labs. A YouTube video that connected the virus to 5G last month racked up roughly two million views before the site deleted it. And the singer Keri Hilson, as well as Mr. Harrelson and Mr. Cusack, posted online about the conspiracy.

    “A lot of my friends have been talking about the negative effects of 5G,” Mr. Harrelson wrote on Instagram to his two million followers last week, sharing a screenshot of an article that drew links between the outbreak in Wuhan and 5G development there.

    Updated by NWF Renim

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    • Cort321
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    Bansho said:

    This kind of behavior wouldn't have surprised me if it happened in the U.S., but the U.K?
    And the Netherlands too, apparently?

    I always thought Europe had a better education system than us.

    The funny thing about that (as someone who traveled a lot), is that every country and society have idiots, but some are better at hiding them than others.

    An example within the US itself would be Florida. Florida Man is a meme, but that isn't because of a higher disposition of crazy shitters in Florida but rather the laxer news and crime reporting of the state relative to the others.

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