5G Conspiracy Theories

About

5G Conspiracy Theories refer to several claims regarding the dangers of 5G wireless technologies and its alleged health effects, which include theories that it causes cancer and coronavirus. However, many of these claims were based on unverified evidence that has been refuted by health experts.

Origin

The earliest available mention of the theory that 5G causes cancer was published on July 14th, 2016 by Josh del Sol, an anti-5G activist on the website "Web of Evidence"^[1] (screenshot below). The article, published shortly after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the wide-spread adoption of 5G technology.

Spread

Days later, on July 18th, del Sol published the article "FCC intimidates press and kills free speech at 5G rollout (video)" on his website "Take Back Your Power."^[2]

Later that week, the YouTube channel "InPower Movement" published the video "The Truth About 5G." The post received more than 123,000 views in less than four years.

Over the next few years, a number of Change.org ^[3][4] users have launched campaigns against 5G. One of which argues, "Research shows that 5G millimeter wave radiation will make people sick, especially unborn children, young children, pregnant women, and individuals with chronic illness."

On November 16th, 2017, the Facebook ^[5] group Stop5GUK launched. Within two years, the group amassed more than 56,000 members.

The following year, on November 13th, 2018, Snopes^[6] reviewed the theory that a "test of a 5G cellular network is the cause of unexplained bird deaths occurring in a park in The Hague, Netherlands." They determined that the report's assertions were false. They wrote:

On 5 November 2018, Erin Elizabeth’s medical conspiracy blog Health Nut News “reported” a seemingly disturbing story out of the Netherlands with the headline “Hundreds of birds dead during 5G experiment in The Hague, The Netherlands.” It turned out that Elizabeth’s article was the wholesale regurgitation of a series of Facebook posts authored by a man named John Kuhles who runs several anti-5G conspiracy websites and social media pages

[…]

No 5G test occurred during the time that the mysterious starling deaths occurred, and the only person suggesting otherwise is someone with a vendetta against both objective reality and 5G wireless. Even if a 5G test had occurred, however, no mechanism exists that would explain how it could have affected starlings at all, let alone only starlings and no other birds or animals in the region.

On July 16th, 2019, the New York Times^[7] published "The 5G Health Hazard That Isn’t." In the article, they argue that many of the concerns surrounding 5G are based on a chart by physicist Bill P. Curry that "purported to show that tissue damage increases with the rising frequency of radio waves."

They wrote:

Except that Dr. Curry and his graph got it wrong.

According to experts on the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation, radio waves become safer at higher frequencies, not more dangerous. (Extremely high-frequency energies, such as X-rays, behave differently and do pose a health risk.)

[…]

The new cellphones are to employ a range of radio frequencies up to dozens of times higher than those Dr. Curry identified two decades ago as endangering student health. But mainstream scientists continue to see no evidence of harm from cellphone radio waves.

“If phones are linked to cancer, we’d expect to see a marked uptick,” David Robert Grimes, a cancer researcher at the University of Oxford, wrote recently in The Guardian. “Yet we do not.”

Related Memes

It's Fast Doe

It's Fast Doe is a catchphrase associated with the 5G cellular data network and is used in memes referencing the conspiracy theory that 5G causes cancer. The format saw a resurgence in April 2020 following the spread of the conspiracy theory linking the COVID-19 pandemic to the development of the 5G network.

Coronavirus 5G Conspiracy Theory

The Coronavirus 5G Conspiracy Theory refers to unsubstantiated claims that 5G networks cause the novel coronavirus COVID-19. There is no evidence to support the theory and the scientific community has dismissed it.

Search Interest

External References