Conspiracy theories about 5G technology are growing in size and intensity-—and finding connections with the pandemic.
The theory that fears of 5G technology might have been behind the Nashville bombing on Christmas Day prompted federal, state and local law enforcement officials to focus on the possibility of additional or copycat threats to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, according to restricted government threat warnings exclusively obtained by Newsweek. Domestic intelligence agencies have warned that conspiracy theorists might attack « critical infrastructure, » including the electrical grid near vulnerable quarantine areas, health care facilities, government buildings, and 5G cell towers. Anti-5G conspiracies have steadily grown since 2016, when telecommunications companies began installing Fifth Generation (5G) wireless technology infrastructure throughout America. Social media has been awash with conspiracy theories about 5G, a movement that has grown in size and intensity with the COVID-19 pandemic. The first large 5G networks were activated in 2018. The nationwide buildout will eventually include thousands of new towers and small cells (signal relays) on pre-existing infrastructure. Early in 2020, conspiracy theories about 5G technology were considered the greatest domestic threat to critical infrastructure, according to homeland security reports. As U.S. domestic intelligence agencies increasingly focused on the threat last April, anti-5G sentiments were already thought to be responsible for almost 200 attacks in the U.K. and the Netherlands. Through the first half of 2020, there have been more than 80 attacks on cellphone towers in the two countries as well as over 100 additional incidents involving arson attacks on telecommunications infrastructure or cases where 5G workers were harassed. In the United States, Tennessee has been a particular hotbed of anti-5G activity, leading the FBI to initially suspect that this was the motive for Anthony Warner’s intentional demolition of his RV in front of the AT&T building in downtown Nashville. Last December 4, according to reporting from the Bureau, arson caused an estimated $120,000 in damages after fire was set to several cellphone towers in the Memphis area, the first 5G physical attacks in America. Through February 17, four additional 5G cell tower attacks occurred in Tennessee, and local fire departments investigated more than a half dozen additional arsons in March and April, many of the latter attacks now connected to COVID-19 and an anti-5G constituency obsessed with a 5G-COVID-19 connection. The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) issued a « Watchline » report in April explaining that: « The online conspiracy consists of false information that 5G electromagnetic energy suppresses the immune system by breaking apart chemical bonds in DNA and that in the presence of bacteria can cause human cells to release free radicals.
