In the UK, cell towers have been set on fire in the cities of Liverpool and Birmingham in recent days. Investigations are still underway to determine the origin, but these incidents occur in an explosive context. Conspiracy theories linking 5G to the coronavirus are in fact widely shared around the world. In addition to these fires, other concrete consequences have been observed and engineers working on 5G projects have been threatened. Faced with this explosive situation, Oliver Dowden, the British Minister of Culture, has announced that he will talk to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in an attempt to have this conspiracy content removed.
Social networks are mobilizing against disinformation
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The message was well heard by YouTube, which announced a series of measures on this subject. Videos establishing a direct link between 5G and the coronavirus will be directly deleted on the platform. The site plans to go further, YouTube plans to limit their recommendation, demonetize them, and remove them from search results.
We will see the implementation of these measures but they should hinder the dissemination of this harmful disinformation on the platform. Since the start of the pandemic, false news has multiplied on social networks forcing them to react. Some publications are now systematically deleted. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have taken the initiative already to fight against this misleading informations.
Also, Coronavirus is a serious problem when we talk about cybersecurity. Email spammers used COVID-19 to convince people to download malicious attachments. Other fraudsters have set up tens of thousands of websites with pandemic domain names. There are also applications and programs that attack computers and smartphones. We also can’t forget about fraudulent SMSs. The hackers try to take advantage of the crisis caused by the coronavirus. They are launching phishing attacks and creating malware on this theme. So take caution.
