In April and May 2020, Facebook’s Georgian users posted a video with a caption “The 2012 Olympics in London. P.S: Draw conclusions yourself.” The video footage shows some fragments from the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics with Russian/English subtitles and illustrations indicating that the novel coronavirus was allegedly spread intentionally and it proceeded under the preplanned project. To substantiate their claims, the authors of the video bring an example of the London Olympics opening ceremony, when hospital beds were rolled onto the stage as a decoration. This fragment is dubbed in the video as “a coronavirus ritual.”
The video repeats conspiracy theories about intentional spread of the coronavirus and the links between 5G wireless technology and the pandemic. A part of the video has been doctored, while some fragments have misleading captions.
Conspiracy theory about hospital beds
The opening ceremony of the London Olympics was held in July 2012. A special segment of the ceremony was dedicated to the British National Health Service (NHS), which provides free health care for all residents of the UK since World War II. Hospital beds which featured in the Olympics opening ceremony were later donated to hospitals in Tunisia. Besides nurses and hospital beds, various characters from British literature, among them Alice from “Alice in Wonderland”, Mary-Poppins, Lord Voldemort and others, also participated in the ceremony.
Photo: Daily Mail
Fake detail 1
During the London Olympics opening ceremony, several villains were put in hospital beds, among others the Queen of Hearts from “Alice in Wonderland, Captain Hook from Peter Pan and Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. In the conspiracy video, the Queen of Hearts is portrayed as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson because quite recently he was hospitalized after testing positive for coronavirus. The authors claim that it was just part of a specific plan
One of the fragments of the disinformation video
The Queen of Hearts (London Olympics)
Fake detail 2
The conspiracy video shows a microscope image of the novel coronavirus covering the entire stadium with laser illumination. The real video, however, contains no such fragment. The video has been doctored and the microscope image of coronavirus has been added deliberately.
Fragment from disinformation video
Fragment from real video
Fake detail 3
The real video features a person of apparently Asian race. The disinformation video passes the person off as Chinese with a special caption on the footage reading Wuhan, China. The real video, however, does not even mention China, while the mentioned person actually plays no specific role.
Fragment from disinformation video
Fake detail 4
Linking COVID-19 to 5G wireless technology is a widespread disinformation. The disinformation video just repeats this conspiracy theory. One of the footages shows a specific tower. According to the video, Britain’s new 20 pound bank note contains an image of the same tower and it is a 5G mobile tower.
Disinformation about the links between Britain’s new £20 notes and 5G masts was also spread in early April. But it should be noted that the new note was issued prior to the coronavirus outbreak. The video featuring the opening ceremony shows a Ferris wheel. The disinformation video resembles one of the parts of the Ferris wheel with the “antenna” depicted on the note. In fact, it is difficult to find out such antenna on the Ferris wheel; instead, the building shown on the note is not an antenna, but actually it is Margate Lighthouse built in Great Britain in 1828.
Fragment from disinformation video
Margate Lighthouse in Great Britain
A lot of misleading materials have been spread about the links between coronavirus and 5G masts, including in Georgian media. See another article published by the Myth Detector on the same topic.
Video spreading scheme
The initial video was uploaded on YouTube by the channel “Исцели Себя Сам” on April 20, 2020. Almost an identical text was used in the video. Identical materials were also spread on YouTube’s other Russian-language channels
The video material was also posted by Facebook’s Georgian users, including Lela Khaburzania Praga, who spreads various conspiracy theories against 5G technology on her Facebook page. Other users also shared the video with the same headline on their Facebook pages. On May 5, 2020, Facebook user Guga Urushadze added the following text to the video:
“This coronavirus is a usual project, in other words, a biological weapon against humankind. Furthermore, you all, who are involved in this process, understand that almost all transnational companies, international organizations, governments, national banks, artists, musicians, economies obey and perform instructions from the Masons and Zionists, among them the Baruchs, Rothschilds, Warburgs, Morgans.”
Prepared by Irakli Iagorashvili
Regional Network of Media Literacy Lab
