At first I did believe there was a virus,
but when they start
taking away your rights it doesn't make sense.
The coronavirus is the biggest threat this
country
has faced for decades.
If you don't follow the rules, the police
will have
the powers to enforce them.
You must stay at home.
Conspiracy theories about 5G have been spreading
since
the beginning of lockdown.
There is no virus.
It's 5G radiation poisoning.
This is all a big part of the eventual goal,
which is control.
Your body can't handle this new 5G.
It's not built for it.
And lots more people are going to be ill.
These false theories have been contagious.
BBC News at two o'clock.
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 Thomas's hospital.
5G...
Get used to this.
Tyranny.
Fascism.
Fascism!
Major health organisations have said that
5G is safe,
and that there is absolutely no link between
it and coronavirus.
Arrest Bill Gates!
Arrest Bill Gates!
So where did the idea come from?
And how far are its believers prepared to
go?
You're going to be poisoned.
Are you going to stand for that?
Well, we're not standing for it.
It isn't coronavirus.
Hi, how's it going?
I'm good.
How are you?
Yeah, I'm 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 it's 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 he's been stuck at home like
the rest of us.
He's 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 5G 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?
They're thinking about the 5G stuff, the radiation
and it making
them sick and what not.
Some of them actually genuinely believed it,
and some of them haven't.
Wow.
Yeah.
False theories about the virus and 5G spread
quickly
at the beginning of lockdown.
Do you think it's difficult to tell what's
true and what's
false at the moment?
Very, very difficult.
I just don't believe anything, to be honest.
Unless I see it come from one of Boris' speeches.
The misinformation that people are spreading,
it's quite dangerous.
There isn't one coherent 5G conspiracy theory.
Some people say the virus is man-made and
lockdown
is a cover for installing 5G.
Others say it's actually 5G that's causing
coronavirus symptoms.
And some think it's an excuse for forced global
vaccination.
It all comes back to a fear that 5G is harmful
to human health.
There is no credible evidence to support that.
But that hasn't 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 I'll 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 wasn't true, but the
idea was infectious,
and anti-5G posts went viral.
On the first day of lockdown, MIA tweeted
then later removed this...
Here's the broadband that they're 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 weren't 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 o'clock.
There's been another record increase in the
number of deaths...
I think it's a man-made thing.
Guys, it's been put there for a reason.
To keep everyone in while they test the 5G.
Amongst his usual posts, British musician
Black the Ripper
was sharing anti-5G videos.
And I'm 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.
On the point about the 5G masts, the stories
that have got
about that they play a role in the spread
of the disease,
that's just nonsense.
Dangerous nonsense as well.
Then this happened on ITV's This Morning.
The fake news that is travelling around at
the moment
is just ridiculous.
Do you remember, first of all, you can't ignore
the 5G conspiracy theory.
What is that all about?
It's not true and it's incredibly stupid...
The only thing I...
I totally agree with everything you're saying,
but what I don't
accept is mainstream media immediately slapping
that down as not true when they don't know
it's not true.
No one should attack or damage or do anything
like that,
but it's very easy to say it is not true because
it suits
the state narrative.
That's all I would say as someone with an
enquiring mind.
The theory that 5G had something to do with
coronavirus had
made its way onto breakfast TV.
He immediately said that this wasn't being
challenged by state media.
Now, as soon as someone talks about the British
press as a state media, you know they've been
on the internet too long.
The media regulator Ofcom later said that
his comments were ill judged
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 5G.
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 5G series.
I hope that clears that up.
With all the misinformation swirling around,
it's easy to lose sight
of what 5G actually is.
David Robert Grimes is a physicist and cancer
researcher.
Hello, how are you doing?
Hey, I'm doing great, how are you?
5G 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.
5G 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 O2 are promoting 5G 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 it's 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 4G, there's 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 don't
always understand what it really means or
how it works,
we are very susceptible to frightening claims.
As we see more and more sleek 5G adverts...
Welcome to the fifth generation.
..some people have become increasingly afraid.
When I heard the word 5G, I just felt horrible...
Naveed works for BT Openreach.
A lady approached my van.
She said, I know what you're here for, I know
what you're doing,
you've been hired by the council to basically
roll out 5G.
He installs home internet and phone lines,
not mobile networks like 5G.
But he's 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 hear foul
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.
No job is worth risking your life for.
Between April and June 2020, telecoms engineers
reported
264 similar incidents.
So what are you laying?
Fibre.
Fibre.
What kind of fibre?
Fibre-optic, 5G ones.
You know when they turn it on, it's going
to kill everyone,
and that's why they're building the hospitals?
No idea.
No idea?
No.
Because when I put it on Facebook it's 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.
OK, well, I'm just saying...
You're safe.
That is them.
That's one of them.
What was he saying?
Tell them we don't 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 5G?
And he says, it's not 5G.
He's a professional guy, he's 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 can't 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 5G and Covid-19.
And there's 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.
It's early May, a month since the Government
assured
the public that 5G 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 5G 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 5G.
It's already been stopped in a lot of cities
and countries.
It was there that we met John.
5G, when that gets turned up that's when they're
going to start
blaming the second wave.
So all our kids are going to get done.
Radiation poisoning.
This ain't no virus.
There is no coronavirus.
They're not treating people with coronavirus.
They ain't.
They are just liars.
There is no virus...
My name is John, I'm a carer for my dad.
I'm 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 concern's over 5G.
There is no virus, in my eyes, because everywhere
they are turning
on 5G is where this so-called virus is coming
now.
I've had concerns over 5G for over four, five
years now.
The vast majority of scientists think that
it's safe.
They don't, they don't, that's what the media
are telling everybody.
The proper scientists have come out and said
it's not safe.
I know my body.
For ten years it's been a certain way.
Until they brought a 5G tower to literally
two
minutes from my house, and I've got a metal
jaw
and that's been in agony.
I've had headaches, I've had eyeballs feel
like they are boiling, I'm getting rashes,
I'm
getting my psoriasis has come up when it never
has,
and all this has happened within five weeks,
since they put
a 5G tower next to my house.
Have you been to the doctor about that?
I'm not going nowhere near the NHS, the hospitals,
they are murdering people.
Doctors get into medicine...
I'm not going near any hospital.
No doctors, nothing.
So what you think is really going on?
I think it's a new world order.
He's pulling the strings, Bill Gates.
They're 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 don't, they don't, they don't.
There is no virus.
A lot of people have died from the virus.
No, they haven't.
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 deeper and 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 5G fans noticed
their website had suddenly
become a lot more popular.
Today I'm in Grimsby, a north-east Lincolnshire
fishing town,
which also happens to have a 5G site in the
town centre.
Which you will be able to see right behind
me here.
And that is the site, I'm going to be testing
out today.
I'm Jake.
I'm Peter, and today we are in Oxford city
centre
to look at networks.
Peter and Jake are 5G enthusiasts.
They run a site that maps out the masts around
the country.
So we are now near Jubilee Gardens and just
to the side of Jake, 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 must just 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 5G?
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 5G cause coronavirus?
People suggest that 5G 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 we've had to prove it exists,
I've had coronavirus.
He has become an online medical myth buster.
5G mobile data is transmitted over radio waves.
These radio waves are non-ionising which means
they don't 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 I'm
not a physicist, which is obviously accurate,
but you don't need to be
a physicist to know that 5G 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 doesn't just stop with 5G
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 don't 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 Government's 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 I'd seen John from
the last protest,
so I met up with him on the eve of the final
Clap For Carers.
How's it going?
How have you been since last time?
Still in pain from the 5G towers.
That's about it, my jaw.
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 5G and the radiation that comes with
it.
Because all our kids are going to be harmed.
It's that time again, loud and proud.
Let's 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.
It's called clap for carers, so aren't they
clapping for you?
Well, I don't want anyone to clap for me,
I'm a carer for my dad
which I would do for free, I don't want help
from
the Government, I don't want no one to clap
for me.
These are things we should do anyway.
The NHS are doing their job.
How is your dad?
At this moment, it's touch and go on what
is happening
and how long he's got.
But I've got him comfortable.
Don't 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 can't sit back and rest while I know we
are being murdered.
Don't you worry that you are isolating yourself
a bit?
No, I'm 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 don't 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 5G 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.
I'm not aware of us having any attacks against
5G 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 we've 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 don't
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 5G 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.
