5 conspiracy theories repeated during 2020

With the planet under a health crisis and the world’s population spending more hours than usual on the internet, it’s no wonder to think that 2020 may have been one of the most fruitful for conspiracy theories. In this review, five examples of the hypotheses most repeated by the suspicious.

Those who are passionate about joining these almost impossible-to-check hypotheses and often attribute malicious intentions to rulers were in favor. The COVID-19 pandemic, the development of drugs and vaccines to combat it, and the death of some relevant figures at the international level served as the perfect trigger for new hypotheses.

In this review, just five examples of what the imagination of the most skeptical was able to concoct.

What conspiracy theories marked 2020?

The death of American basketball star Kobe Bryant shook the entire world in 2020. Despite the fact that it was an air tragedy in which eight other people, including the athlete’s 13-year-old daughter, also lost their lives, theories about an alleged homicide were the order of the day.

One of the strangest ones indicated that just a few minutes before the helicopter in which he was travelling crashed, Bryant had posted a Twitter message saying, “I have information that will lead to Hillary Clinton’s arrest.” Obviously, the theory held that Bryant’s death had not been accidental but a crime to conceal the alleged information he possessed.

An analysis by the US news checker site Politifact confirmed that Bryant never tweeted that day and the viralized capture was false.

Bryant’s death also led to a strange post by Argentine journalist Eduardo Salim Sad, who recalled that the basketball player was travelling in a helicopter manufactured by the Sikorsky Aircraft. “Helicopter Sikorsky S 76, Jewish surname, kills Kobe Bryant,” he tweeted. The publication, which was later deleted, also supported the hypothesis of an alleged Jewish plot behind the crime.

When it comes to conspiracy theories involving American politicians, it’s impossible not to mention Qanon. It is not strictly a theory that emerged in 2020 but since it is an electoral year in the North American country, its defenders were particularly active.

Basically, the theory known as Qanon—a name born from an anonymous man who, using the pseudonym ‘Q’, began to raise those ideas on internet forums in 2017—alleges that US President Donald Trump is the victim of a conspiracy by Democratic Party leaders like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama to deliver a coup against Trump.

In this task, according to the defenders of this theory, the political leaders would have the support of most Hollywood movie stars and the businessman George Soros, usually pointed out by conspiracy theories of right-wing sectors.

And while Trump was highly questioned during his administration, he reached the November 2020 election against Biden and fought re-election vote-by-vote with the Democratic nominee.

The Qanon theory seems to be, in any case, more alive than ever, considering that in those elections the first congresswoman to openly supports the existence of this conspiracy reached a seat in the House of Representatives. This is the Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was elected deputy for the state of Georgia.

The United States has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories in 2020 and those who distrust any logical explanation even questioned the death of the young Afro-descendant George Floyd, murdered on May 25 in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, by police agents who recorded it.

In June, an article in the New York Times newspaper warned that an American YouTuber named JonXArmy claimed, in a 22-minute video, that Floyd’s death had been faked. The video was shared more than 100 times on Facebook and had a reach, according to the newspaper, of 1.3 million people.

Thousands of messages also emerged on Twitter stating that Floyd “is not dead” and that the video showing his death was a montage starring an actor.

This theory is also connected with the one that indicates that the magnate Soros is behind the social protests that began after the murder of Floyd. Tens of thousands of messages on Twitter and Facebook affirmed that the businessman financed and organized the protests, which in fact were spontaneous in their beginning, as a result of the outrage over racial violence in the country.

Of course, the irruption of the new coronavirus in the lives of the inhabitants of the planet fueled a variety of conspiracy theories that tried to explain the origin or intent of the virus that paralyzed the entire world since March.

The conspiracies behind COVID-19 are countless but some stood out especially for their ability to spread. One of the best known was the one that linked the virus to 5G technology, created by China and used for the new generation of mobile phones and household appliances.

According to the defenders of this theory, 5G networks are capable of transmitting the virus and even affecting the body’s defenses. The idea spread among people to the point that in the United Kingdom 5G towers were burned due to their alleged fault in the spread of the disease. Of course, the theory was refuted by various scientists, who reaffirmed the viral nature of COVID-19 and ruled out that 5G waves are capable of causing these effects.

As many theories linked the origin of the new coronavirus to state laboratories in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases occurred. Some theories claimed that the virus was created as a biological weapon but spun out of control, while others, more ruthless, argued that the virus was a tool to decimate the world’s elderly population.

Another hypothesis, related both to reducing the aging population and to Qanon, attributes the invention of the virus to the American businessman Bill Gates. The flame that ignited this theory is the work of the Gates Foundation to finance the development of vaccines and the fact that, in the framework of its work, Gates had previously warned about the risk of the arrival of a pandemic.

Gates, founder of the Microsoft company, is also very prominent in the conspiracy theories behind COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, among the first hypotheses was that the businessman wanted to promote a “mass vaccination” against the virus that, according to his strange plan, would kill up to 95% of the world’s population.

Other hypotheses claimed that Gates’ real plan was to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant “microchips” into people’s bodies. Through these devices, the tycoon would be able to control or record all the movements of people.