Now on bbc news, how covid 19 triggered the spread of a 56 Conspiracy Theory. At first i did believe there was a virus, but when they start taking away your rights it doesnt make sense. The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades. If you dont follow the rules, the police will have the powers to enforce them. You must stay at home. Conspiracy theories about 56 have been spreading since the beginning of lockdown. There is no virus. Its 56 radiation poisoning. This is all a big part of the eventual goal, which is control. Your body cant handle this new 56. Its not built for it. And lots more people are going to be ill. These false theories have been contagious. Bbc news at two oclock. This is nicky cardwell. Police have broken up a group of around 25 people protesting about the lockdown in central london. The demonstration took place near to the a e unit of st thomass hospital. 56. Get used to this. Tyranny. Fascism. Fascism major Health Organisations have said that 56 is safe, and that there is absolutely no link between it and coronavirus. Arrest bill gates so where did the idea come from . And how far are its believers prepared to go . Youre going to be poisoned. Are you going to stand for that . Well, were not standing for it. It isnt coronavirus. Hi, hows it going . Im good. How are you . Yeah, im good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. How much time are you spending online . I looked at my screen time on my phone, i think it was like. 16 hours, maybe . A day . Yeah. Yeah, but its gone down now. But at first it was like 16, maybe 17 hours. Yeah. What did your mum say . My mum was not happy at all. Isaac is 17 and hes been stuck at home like the rest of us. Hes been living through his phone, and in early april his friends started sharing something unusual. Someone sent something to my Snapchat Group chat, it was some guy who was talking about how the sg thing is the real thing that we should be scared about, not coronavirus, and coronavirus is a cover up for a lot of Different Things that the government is doing. I was thinking, this guy is definitely bored, because it makes no sense. What are your friends thinking . Theyre thinking about the sg stuff, the radiation and it making them sick and whatnot. Some of them actually genuinely believed it, and some of them havent. Wow. Yeah. False theories about the virus and sg spread quickly at the beginning of lockdown. Do you think its difficult to tell whats true and whats false at the moment . Very, very difficult. I just dont believe anything, to be honest. Unless i see it come from one of boris speeches. The misinformation that people are spreading, its quite dangerous. There isnt one coherent sg Conspiracy Theory. Some people say the virus is man made and lockdown is a cover for installing sg. Others say its actually 56 thats causing coronavirus symptoms. And some think its an excuse for forced global vaccination. It all comes back to a fear that 56 is harmful to human health. There is no credible evidence to support that. But that hasnt stopped wild speculation online, and celebrities have been super spreaders. Us singer keri hilson was one of the first. She shared this now debunked video of an alternative doctor in march. And ill finish with, anybody want to make one guess as to where the first completely blanketed 5g city in the world was . Wuhan. Exactly. Keri later tweeted that her management asked her to remove the post. What the doctor said wasnt true, but the idea was infectious, and anti sg posts went viral. On the first day of lockdown, mia tweeted then later removed this. Heres the broadband that theyre digging up to install. Why are these men here . Then calum best put a post on instagram. So did lee ryan from boy band blue. Like so many of these posts, it has since been deleted. Then hollywood actor woody harrelson. These messages were coming up on all of our feeds and they werent stopping. Amanda holden said she accidentally tweeted a link to this petition. But four hours after she shared it, the page had over 120,000 signatures. Bbc news at eight oclock. Theres been another record increase in the number of deaths. I think its a man made thing. Guys, its been put there for a reason. To keep everyone in while they test the sg. Amongst his usual posts, british musician black the ripper was sharing anti sg videos. And im mad at trump for allowing 5g to come in. Then he died. Rest in peace, black the ripper. And respect for speaking the truth before you died. It fuelled even more conspiracy theories. By the end of the first week of april, fake news was everywhere and the government decided to step in. 0n the point about the sg masts, the stories that have got about that they play a role in the spread of the disease, thats just nonsense. Dangerous nonsense as well. Then this happened on itvs this morning. The fake news that is travelling around at the moment isjust ridiculous. Do you remember, first of all, you cant ignore the 5g Conspiracy Theory. What is that all about . Its not true and its incredibly stupid. The only thing i. I totally agree with everything youre saying, but what i dont accept is Mainstream Media immediately slapping that down as not true when they dont know its not true. No one should attack or damage or do anything like that, but its very easy to say it is not true because it suits the state narrative. Thats all i would say as someone with an enquiring mind. The theory that 56 had something to do with coronavirus had made its way onto breakfast tv. He immediately said that this wasnt being challenged by state media. Now, as 50011 as someone talks about the British Press as a state media, you know theyve been on the internet too long. The media regulator 0fcom later said that his comments were illjudged and risked undermining trust in public authorities and Scientific Evidence. Just before we go on to the programme, i want to clarify some comments that some of you may have misinterpreted from me yesterday around conspiracy theories and coronavirus, and this involved the roll out of 56. Every theory relating to such a connection has been proven to be false, and we would like to emphasise that. However, many people are rightly concerned and are looking for answers, and that is simply what i was trying to do, to impart yesterday. But for the avoidance of any doubt i want to make it clear, no Scientific Evidence to substantiate any of those 56 series. I hope that clears that up. With all the misinformation swirling around, its easy to lose sight of what 56 actually is. David Robert Grimes is a physicist and cancer researcher. Hello, how are you doing . Hey, im doing great, how are you . 56 is essentially a new standard in mobile technology. And one of the things that people correctly realise is that this is a form of radiation. Radiation is scary, people are frightened of that word. There are forms of radiation that are very, very dangerous. But what people forget is light is also a form of radiation. 56 is tens of thousands of times less energetic than even the visible light to which we are exposed every day. Technology, it pushes us forward. While Companies Like 02 are promoting 56 with glossy adverts like this. And it has long empowered generation after generation. There is an underbelly of people that have long opposed it. I think its really important to work out that a lot of conspiracy theories being spread at the moment are actually not even new. There was people against ag, theres groups against wi fi, and back in the 1910s there were people against radio. What has changed now is not that these Fringe Groups have existed, they always have, but now they can harness the power of social media to go and spread their beliefs and to evangelise them. And because we live in a world where we use technology but we dont always understand what it really means or how it works, we are very susceptible to frightening claims. As we see more and more sleek sg adverts. Welcome to the fifth generation. Some people have become increasingly afraid. When i heard the word 56, i just felt horrible. Naveed works for bt 0penreach. A lady approached my van. She said, i know what youre here for, i know what youre doing, youve been hired by the council to basically roll out 56. He installs Home Internet and phone lines, not mobile Networks Like 56. But hes been targeted just like other engineers. One day in april, a woman approached quoting false information. It made no sense to me, as well, about microwaves and blood cells and how it affects everyone. She walked further up past the shop, and probably about ten metres down there was a group of ten men. When she was pointing at me and she said, that person, he is the cause of everyone dying, then i could hearfoul language, i could hear abuse, i could things like, murderer, killer. Threats like, watch out, watch what happens to you. You feel very, very frightened and scared. Nojob is worth risking your life for. Between april and june 2020, telecoms engineers reported 264 similar incidents. So what are you laying . Fibre. What kind of fibre . Fibre optic, sg ones. You know when they turn it on, its going to kill everyone, and thats why theyre building the hospitals . No idea. Noidea . No. Because when i put it on facebook its going bleep viral. Is this, is this, is this your rf reader . No. Is that your rf reader . This is a bleep label machine, mate. Look. 0k, well, imjust saying. Youre safe. That is them. Thats one of them. What was he saying . Tell them we dont want 5g in this area. Why are you guys hassling this man . I see him take a lot of crap before. They attacked him, and they say, why is he putting in 56 . And he says, its not 56. Hes a professional guy, hes working. Come on. This thing is bigger than all of us here. Because i could find myself in a box tomorrow. Because the government can kill people if you talk too much. The birds are getting the biggest hit because, you know, they get the radioactive. They cant take certain microwaves in the air, you know . Because they are weaker than us. Yeah, we die slowly. Naveed is one of many engineers who have been harassed thanks to the spread of theories linking 56 and covid 19. And theres consequences. One study found that if you believe in a link, you are far more likely to leave the house even if you have coronavirus symptoms. The latest figures show that another 346 deaths linked to covid 19 have been confirmed across the uk in 24 hours, bringing the total number of victims to 31,587. Its early may, a month since the government assured the public that 56 conspiracy theories are false. Ladies and gentlemen, your government have lied to you. A small group of protesters have gathered in saint james park, london. Their concerns range from vaccines to freedom of speech. Bill gates, he is saying that we have to have mandatory vaccinations. Until we all take the vaccinations, the whole world is on lockdown. But 56 fears after what seemed to unite them. There is an appeal from over 240 scientists and doctors, formally appealing to the un, asking for the stopping of 56. Its already been stopped in a lot of cities and countries. It was there that we metjohn. 56, when that gets turned up thats when theyre going to start blaming the second wave. So all our kids are going to get done. Radiation poisoning. This aint no virus. There is no coronavirus. Theyre not treating people with coronavirus. They aint. They are just liars. There is no virus. My name is john, im a carerfor my dad. Im a qualified personal trainer. In my spare time i like to do boxing and train my clients. So we met you at the protest why did you decide to go down . My concerns over 56. There is no virus, in my eyes, because everywhere they are turning on 56 is where this so called virus is coming now. Ive had concerns over 56 for over four, five years now. The vast majority of scientists think that its safe. They dont, they dont, thats what the media are telling everybody. The proper scientists have come out and said its not safe. I know my body. For ten years its been a certain way. Until they brought a 56 tower to literally two minutes from my house, and ive got a metaljaw and thats been in agony. Ive had headaches, ive had eyeballs feel like they are boiling, im getting rashes, im getting my psoriasis has come up when it never has, and all this has happened within five weeks, since they put a 56 tower next to my house. Have you been to the doctor about that . Im not going nowhere near the nhs, the hospitals, they are murdering people. Doctors get into medicine. Im not going near any hospital. No doctors, nothing. So what you think is really going on . I think its a new world order. Hes pulling the strings, bill gates. Theyre wiping people out with radiation and then they can come for the children with the vaccines. The same man who wants to vaccinate us is the same man who wants to de populate the world. Vaccines stop people from getting illnesses. They dont, they dont, they dont. There is no virus. A lot of people have died from the virus. No, they havent. We are being played, whatever way it is we are being played. When i deal with people who are anti 5g, they are very frequently anti vaccine and anti medicine, in the conventional sense. Bill gates has put an awful lot of his work into vaccinating people in developing countries. And we do that because after clean water and sanitation there is nothing that saves more lives than vaccination. That makes him a villain to people that are ideologically opposed to vaccination. So to accept that 5g is secretly doing us harm, you have to then accept that the who and the center for Disease Control and all these International Health protection bodies are lying to us, and as it goes on you have to accept more and more to preserve your initial belief. And that drives people deeperand deeper into, i would say, the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. And conspiracy theorists have turned on people in unexpected ways. In april a pair of amateur 56 fans noticed their website had suddenly become a lot more popular. Today im in grimsby, a North East Lincolnshire fishing town, which also happens to have a 56 site in the town centre. Which you will be able to see right behind me here. And that is the site, im going to be testing out today. Imjake. Im peter, and today we are in Oxford City Centre to look at networks. Peter and jake are 56 enthusiasts. They run a site that maps out the masts around the country. So we are now nearjubilee gardens and just to the side ofjake, there, is a three samsung small cell. Three do actually have small cells. Yeah. That is indeed true. Recently we saw a spike in traffic to the website. At first we were just like, oh, our seo must be really good. We are at the top of the Google Search results. People mustjust be interested in 5g. It was only when we started to look on the stop 5g pages that we realised it was a bit worse than we had actually thought. 5g tower. Zero g now. Mad, are you . Remember when lots of celebrities were posting about 56 . That week there were 20 arson attacks on masts. The website traffic increased by about 3000 , but some pages were increasing in traffic by over about 14,000 . One group in particular was specifically titled as a mast arson competition, and that is when we made the rather sad decision that it was probably best to start to take down some of the pages. In another part of the internet, one doctor has stepped up in the fight against misinformation. Did 56 cause coronavirus . People suggest that 56 damaged the immune system and boosted the viruses. This is not true. Dr Karan Rangarajan is a surgeon in the nhs. How do you know coronavirus is real . Well, apart from all the science and medicine and ct scans and chest x rays and tests weve had to prove it exists, ive had coronavirus. He has become an Online Medical myth buster. 56 mobile data is transmitted over radio waves. These radio waves are non ionising which means they dont damage the dna inside ourselves, unlike x rays, gamma rays and uv rays. Spread knowledge, not the virus. I did a video on youtube and on tiktok. The comments which dominated the comment thread are all about im not a physicist, which is obviously accurate, but you dont need to be a physicist to know that 56 does not cause coronavirus, you need to be human with common sense and logic. The real worry is young kids and other people who could be, for want of a better term, brainwashed by these ludicrous theories, which doesntjust stop with 56 and coronavirus. It goes to vaccines, then Young Mothers not vaccinating their kids. And by not vaccinating, we can have outbreaks of these things, we dont want that. It has been over seven weeks since most people have seen their loved ones. Around 300 people have taken part in a protest against the lockdown. But a week after the last protest there was another, and it was much bigger. Tom symons was there. Protesters gathered near Speakers Corner making few attempts to keep their distance from one another. They oppose the governments measures, some saying the virus was a hoax. Piers corbyn, the brother of the former labour leader, was among those led away. It had been a while since id seen john from the last protest, so i met up with him on the eve of the final clap for carers. Hows it going . How have you been since last time . Still in pain from the sg towers. Thats about it, myjaw. But we have to keep going. Instead of clapping, he has made a sign. I agree strongly with this, no clapping for the murderers. No to 56 and the radiation that comes with it. Because all our kids are going to be harmed. Its that time again, loud and proud. Lets all clap for our carers. Cheering and clapping. While the rest of the uk were clapping, john held his cardboard. I remembered something he had said earlier. When i spoke to you last time, you said you were a carer. Yes, i am a carer myself. Its called clap for carers, so arent they clapping for you . Well, i dont want anyone to clap for me, im a carerfor my dad which i would do forfree, i dont want help from the government, i dont want no one to clap for me. These are things we should do anyway. The nhs are doing theirjob. How is your dad . At this moment, its touch and go on what is happening and how long hes got. But ive got him comfortable. Dont you think maybe it might be good to spend the time and effort you put into this you could be spending with your dad . I get that, but again it comes down to humanity. I cant sit back and rest while i know we are being murdered. Dont you worry that you are isolating yourself a bit . No, im not, i was isolated away from the world anyway, because the world has too many nasty, evil, greedy people in it. So my life has not changed much. I dont care what anyone thinks. I would lose my own family over this, i stand by my beliefs, i have a fire in myself and i will not back down. John is one of the growing minority who believe in the sg theories. And that anger is having a big impact around the country. Welcome on board the Avanti West Coast service to liverpool lime street. There has been nearly 100 mast fires since the start of lockdown. Merseyside has been a hotspot. Im not aware of us having any attacks against 56 masts prior to the covid 19 pandemic. Detective chief superintendent mark kameen has had to set up a unit dedicated to investing the fires. Merseyside Police Received a call from a member of the public who had seen three figures running away from a telecommunications mast, and he could see that the mast was on fire. We found the partial burnt remains of a rubber glove. When we sent it off the dna investigation, a profile came back for michael whitty. Michael whitty was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to arson. This is the first time weve had a conviction in the uk. It is arson that they are committing. It is a very serious offence. This is foolish behaviour, done by stupid people who dont understand the impact of what their actions are doing to the wider community, removing a key means of communication for people who may be vulnerable to get in touch with Emergency Services or to get in touch with their own loved ones. It is an attack on our national infrastructure. Today we can say that our Long National hibernation is beginning to come to an end, and life is returning to our streets. The uk is emerging from a lockdown infected by damaging misinformation. Theories about 56 mutated and multiplied, undermining social distancing and potentially stopping people from getting future vaccines, meaning this Conspiracy Theory could have a toxic legacy for all of us. Hello. Well, not much happening with the weather out there at the moment. A lot of dry weather, some clear spells. And, actually, Tuesday Morning isnt looking too bad at all across most of the uk. However, rain is expected, and once it arrives, it might stick around all through the day. And it will end up being grey, damp and cool at least for some of us not everywhere. Now, at the moment, you can see the gap in the weather across the uk some clear spells here. But out in the atlantic is this daisy chain of weather fronts. You can see the clouds here, rain bearing clouds. That is heading in our direction. Once it reaches us, it will stick around, this whole sort of Conveyor Belt of cloud and rain, probably for a good 2 3 days. So, this is what it looks like through the early hours. You can see quiet across much of england, wales, scotland, apart from a few showers there, dry just about to northern ireland, but here is that weather front, that daisy chain of cloud and rain that ive just been talking about. Thats going to be reaching ireland very early in the morning and then spread into northern ireland. Belfast is in for some rain certainly by mid morning. Then, basically, its this central swathe of the uk that will turn grey and wet at times. So northern wales, merseyside, certainly lancashire into the lakes, not particularly pleasant, and that rain will spread into yorkshire too. Either side of that, actually, the weather isnt too bad at all. Some sunshine there in scotland and in the south of the country as well. But then, that weather front, that sort of Conveyor Belt is going to sink further southwards. So its more southern parts of the country that gets the cloud and outbreaks of rain on wednesday whereas areas to the north, will turn a little bit brighter. So, liverpool, perhaps some sunshine there come wednesday and 18 degrees. Now, its still with us on thursday, the remnants of it. Still cloud and some outbreaks of rain across the south, probably from liverpool northwards, the weather is looking better. Some sunshine in belfast there on thursday, not a bad day, but cool, 16 degrees, this is airfrom the north atlantic. All of that warmth is still way to the south where its heating up across spain, portugal and france. Were in the cool air right now. Now, this is the outlook for the next few days. That warmer air from the southern climes willjust be about reaching us, but well have to wait, i think, until the weekend. Welcome to bbc news, im mike embley. Our top stories hong kong publishes details of its new security law, among them, the right of police to search homes without a warrant. Brazils Coronavirus Crisis continues but the worst affected city, sao paulo, gets back to business. Parts of the us report record hospitalisations from covid 19, sparking fears some places could soon run out of beds. 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