In another example of why we should never investigate our heroes, it appears celebrity Woody Harrelson is promoting a narrative that 5G caused the coronavirus. This isn’t a new declaration, as the internet loves a good (bad) conspiracy theory, especially when it has mild hints of xenophobia, but it’s a new low for the Zombieland star.
It can be difficult to explain why something that isn’t true is believed to be factual, so people’s assumption that 5G is dangerous could have many sources. It could be that, due to the limited range of 5G, it requires installing new types of towers in populated areas. It could be people’s unfounded fears about 5G’s use of a different radio frequency than 4G (despite those radio waves already existing in other forms). It could be indirect racism as fears of anything categorized as an export from China sets off alarms in western cultures that those things are untrustworthy. Either way, research has been done and there’s no evidence showing a logical reason 5G should pose any medical threats, even though we do not know what effect prolonged exposure to the technology has on humans.
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These very basic ideas may have eluded Woody Harrelson as the actor has taken to Instagram recently, sharing posts about 5G as the origin of the coronavirus. While he has several posts highlighting the humor in social distancing (although, in the context of this new information, those posts could be him criticizing it rather than him finding levity in a dark situation), it wasn’t until yesterday that he shared a report from Dr. Martin Pall. Pall, whose unsubstantiated claims also suggest cell phone frequencies cause wildfires and suicide, argues 5G’s prevalence in China caused the spread of COVID-19. Woody’s personal caption on the post read “Alot of my friends have been talking about the negative effects of 5G My friend camilla seems [sic] this to me today and though I haven’t fully vetted it I find it very interesting“.
Harrelson followed that post with a video he captioned “Meanwhile the Chinese are bringing 5G antennas down“. The footage being referenced is, shockingly, not a 5G antenna being dismantled. It’s a video from the Hong Kong protests in 2019, depicting citizens pulling down a lamppost.
It’s easy to look at things like this and wonder “Who cares what celebrities think?”, and the answer is millions of people care. Coronavirus misinformation has already claimed lives and, given the nature of the virus, the more people we have observing the global effort to stay vigilant, the fewer additional deaths we’ll suffer. At the minimum, it would be nice for anyone with a large platform to simply research topics before sharing their views with millions of potentially gullible people. As of this writing, Woody Harrelson has yet to acknowledge the controversy.
Source: Woody Harrelson/Instagram
