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Cell-tower attacks by idiots who claim 5G spreads COVID-19 reportedly hit US:
US warns carriers to boost security, citing reports of attacks in several states.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly issuing alerts to wireless telecom providers and law enforcement agencies about potential attacks on cell towers and telecommunications workers by 5G/coronavirus conspiracy theorists. The DHS warned that there have already been "arson and physical attacks against cell towers in several US states."
The preposterous claim that 5G can spread the coronavirus, either by suppressing the immune system or by directly transmitting the virus over radio waves, led to dozens of tower burnings in the UK and mainland Europe. Now, the DHS "is preparing to advise the US telecom industry on steps it can take to prevent attacks on 5G cell towers following a rash of incidents in Western Europe fueled by the false claim that the technology spreads the pathogen causing COVID-19," The Washington Post reported last week.
<no-sarcasm>
FACT: 5G mobile networks DO NOT spread COVID-19!
</no-sarcasm>
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:05AM (31 children)
I am pretty well connected with alternative information channels (all you need is to follow the right twitter bubble btw). I have only seen "5g spreads covid" in straw man arguments.
The actual argument is: is there a correlation between 5g exposure and depleted defenses against covid? I dunno, all I know is that the argument has been put forward for Wuhan, for Bergamo (there we have a correlation with high vaccination rates, so I'd first consider that one, it's a pretty solid argument), for the zone in my city where supposedly covid cases are higher.
My position is: irrelevant. 5g is as useful, and as potentially dangerous as police checkpoints at every corner of the street. Do not want except in corner cases.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:11AM (12 children)
My position is: irrelevant. 5g is as useful, and as potentially dangerous as police checkpoints at every corner of the street. Do not want except in corner cases.
I figure that is what may be behind these strawman arguments. Nutjobs get wound up via Facebook and Twitter by those paid to wind them up and by extension discredit any and all critique of 5G. Protocol-wise, I have heard that it is more or less the same as 4G. Frequency-wise, the signals don't reach very far and you'd need towers every few meters for coverage. Take the case of the demo where the tower could not provide coverage for even a single American Football stadium. With that density of towers, it is great for surveillance but prohibitive to deploy and maintain.
Another factor is that one 5G frequency range does a number on weather radar. That brings climate change into the fight and there are some major interests that want to ignore that until it is too late.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:54PM (4 children)
5G mMIMO means directional, means basically rays of uncheckable intensity and a far wider frequency range than the nominal one. So it's not like previous Gs which haven't been much tested either before deployment. My personal impression is that with the advent of cellphones the IQ went down >10 points. Can't say if because of emissions or because the brain is occupied sorting inputs instead of reasoning.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:15PM (3 children)
I was thinking about this the other day. I'm old enough to have gone from party line to smartphone, so I do remember how things used to be. Anyway, what got me on the topic was that I was sitting around on my patio after a day working and as I went to grab my phone to look at a news aggregator site, it struck me that the evening was beautiful, I could think about anything I wanted to whether fun or utilitarian, and that by grabbing my phone and scrolling through news headlines which have no real bearing on my life, I'd be wasting this time by missing the beauty around me and the opportunity to think. So I grabbed my phone and looked at headlines.
These things are fucking heroin -- I've never done heroin but I expect at first it is fun and then over time, it evolves into a maintenance thing and all the luster wears off. I think that's where I am with my phone. A fucking addict and the device is ruining me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by acid andy on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:59PM (1 child)
It'll probably wear out and break in a year or two. That might give you a chance to kick the habit. Not all phones are smart, yet.
*Grabs laptop and scrolls through SoylentNews comments*
A fucking addict. Yes, I know what you mean.
*Back to more scrolling*
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 21 2020, @02:24AM
I replaced the camera when the old one went bad but did it a little wrong and so the screen doesn't stick down to the backlight in one corner perfectly -- a good way for water to egress. The on/off button is going too -- I have to really jam it hard to get it to turn on. It's been this way for more than a year now (screen and button) but my disgust with these devices has meant I haven't had any motivation to replace it. From to time I muse on fixing the on/off button sort of half hoping if I did, I'd screw it up. Then I'd be faced with the choice.
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Thursday May 21 2020, @03:56PM
I'm only in my mid-thirties, and still old enough to have gone from party line to smart phone.
- D
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 20 2020, @04:35PM (6 children)
The wound up people actually exist, though, so it's no longer a strawman. Regardless of whether it's based on an astroturf campaign...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:20PM (5 children)
Close. It's not a mutually exclusive situation. So now there are two problems. The one is that which the strawman arguments are distracting from and the other is the wound up nutjobs.
You could say there are more problems since, as mentioned, some group is winding them up and, presumably, they are doing it on behalf of some more remote interests. Another is the control that Facebook weilds over mass public opinion.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 20 2020, @06:08PM (3 children)
But again, it is NOT a strawman argument because people actually are saying that 5G causes coronavirus.
A strawman is when you rebut an argument nobody made. People ARE making that argument and we have the burning cellphone towers to prove it. [go.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @07:23PM (2 children)
Nitpick not pertaining to this discussion but "strawman is when you rebut an argument nobody made" is not quite correct, in a debate it means an argument that you did not make. Not that the argument has never existed anywhere ever.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday May 20 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfil34ayaEU [youtube.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @08:26PM
Why did you share that video, it says the same thing as the other AC?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @07:28PM
My money is on the russians. Anything to sow discord in the West.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:28AM (3 children)
how about TB? [bloomberg.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday May 20 2020, @10:42AM (2 children)
A correlation of Covid19 fatalities with the BCG vaccine is infinitely more plausible than 5G.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 20 2020, @10:58AM (1 child)
but the apparent link is the other way [irishtimes.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday May 20 2020, @11:58AM
Yes, of course I meant 'inverse correlation'. Blame it on English not being my native language.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Username on Wednesday May 20 2020, @12:20PM (13 children)
Yeah, I haven't seen any actual conspiracy theories about it, and I watch Alex Jones and frequent 4chan. All those were debunked back when 4g came out. I think people burning them down is the conspiracy theory. I think most are transformers going up or bad installs, with arson as the scapegoat. Who is going to climb up a tower, open the box, put a flare in there or something, light it up, close the box, climb down. That seems like a lot of work. I can see throwing stuff at it, but how does it burn the insides? It would just burn the outsides of the box. Plus, it will take multiple tries, more likely to light up the buildings or trees next to it throwing stuff at it.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:23PM (8 children)
Quite so, but I did see people with anti-5G posters when I was protesting the house arrest order in my city. It is the MO for the powers that keep us imprisoned globally: Find people or a situation far off the deep end, give it great coverage and suggest that they are related to "Covid-19 deniers". Could have the secondary effect of inhibiting rationally concerned people to show up, because they are afraid of being ridiculed for the unrelated opinions of people standing next to them.
German MSM is doing the same, only there it is insinuating that demonstrators are actually AFDs, Pegidas, Populists, Anti-democrats -- whatever propaganda terms they have worked diligently the last 10 years to negatively tinge.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 20 2020, @04:37PM (7 children)
Being at the covid-denial protest kinda leads one to that conclusion...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:08PM (6 children)
It fills me with joy to thwart your dream of a life of leisure on the government teat.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:41PM (5 children)
I'm in an essential industry, moron.
I'm one of the people keeping the lights on in your house right now.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @07:05PM (3 children)
Morons are an essential industry?
(Score: 5, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday May 20 2020, @07:17PM (2 children)
No dummy, it's monkeys. You know, the ones on the bicycles attached to the generators. Come on, it's right in his name! Of course, 'Death' probably means he's in project management.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 21 2020, @02:03AM (1 child)
Worse, I'm in the Health & Safety Department!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @02:58AM
Does it come with a sonic screwdriver?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @07:08PM
Wait, you're the one turning lights on and leaving the room?! All this time I blamed the kids ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:48PM
I believe this bullshit is primarily spreading among lacertilian, "anti-zionist" types. David Icke is an idiot.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday May 20 2020, @10:59PM (1 child)
Perfect example of a "strawman" fallacy. If you'd actually bothered to RTFA, you'd see a picture of a burned electrical box quite clearly near the ground.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday May 21 2020, @12:13AM
Which TFA are you talking about? The BBC had a video of a fire on a pole. Looked to me like a transformer burning, but it was dark out and heavy contrast between the flames and surroundings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @04:38PM
The antenna is "up the tower".
The equipment is on the ground.