Fake news is spreading much faster than the spread of corona-virus

At least 170 people have been killed by China's coronavirus and nearly 7,711 people are infected with the virus among many countries, including the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States. They are taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, more and faker news is spreading in China and elsewhere, much faster than the spread of coronavirus. Hence, the Government of every country emphasizes that all measures have been taken to prevent the spread of the virus and urge the people not to be fooled by false propaganda.

The following is a report by the BBC Monitoring Division on a number of fake news stories about the coronavirus.

Bat Soup Video

From the very beginning, many people expressed various opinions about how the coronavirus virus came about. The viral outbreak in Wuhan has sparked controversy following the spread of videos claiming that Chinese people are eating bats. A video featuring a Chinese woman cooked bats claiming to be chicken, in particular, has protested on social networks, with some suggesting that the coronavirus is the diet of Chinese people.

But this is not a video recorded in Wuhan or China. In 2016, the video was recorded by Mengyun Wang, a blogger who writes online travel blogs while on a tour of the islands of Palau. The video was once again in conversation with the emergence of a new coronavirus in the Wuhan area late last year. Despite the objections raised, Mengyeon Wan apologized for saying that the bats did not know they were haters. The video has also been taken off the Internet.

Although the latest research in China suggests bats may also be a pathogen, bats are not a common food among Chinese people, and there is further research into the emergence of the virus.

A Planned Disaster

Another allegation leveled at social media is that scientists have long known about the coronavirus. Jordan Sathe, a YouTube star and frequent commenter on conspiracy were one of the first to make such allegations. Releasing a Twitter message, he cited an application filed by the Pirbright Institute in Surrey, England, in 2015 to obtain a patent for the invention of a coronavirus virus.

He argued that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an organization sponsored by the Pirbright Institute, was convinced that the emergence of the current coronavirus was deliberately done to sponsor a vaccine. But Pirbright has not patented the current coronavirus; It is acquired for a variety of chickenpox-infected coronavirus. Teresa Maughan, a spokeswoman for Pirbright, told the BuzzFeed website that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has not sponsored research on the virus that causes the cough.

Biological Weapon

Another baseless allegation is that the latest coronavirus is part of China's "secret biological weapons program." The conspiracy theories suggest that it was released by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. They are based on two reports, quoted by an Israeli intelligence official, the Washington Times. The two articles found no evidence, however, that the intelligence official had stated that "there is no evidence or indication that the virus has been released." The two articles have been shared widely on social media, which could be in the millions. In a similar article, The Daily Star reported that the virus "may have started in a clandestine laboratory." But the newspaper later edited the article, saying there was no evidence to prove it.

Official research suggests that the virus may have originated in a fish stall in the Huanan area of ​​Wuhan. The Washington Times has not yet responded to a BBC inquiry.