6 reasons why the Nashville bombing is a tech story
Yes, it was an act of terrorism. But what's driving the terrorism is Silicon Valley.
A 63-year-old former IT consultant named Anthony Warner appears to have killed himself and injured 3 others in front of a Nashville, Tennessee, AT&T building on Christmas Day. The explosion took out the AT&T building, damaged dozens of other buildings and interrupted mobile service in several cities.
Police and press are being appropriately cautious about ascribing motive, but Warner appears to have been animated by anti-5G conspiracy theories.
I've been warning about an underappreciated public resistance to 5G for over two years. I think attacks on 5G resources will become much more common in the years to come.
Last year I wrote a piece for Computerworld called "Who's slowing down fast 5G," describing a dynamic between not-in-my-backyard activists who fear health damage by 5G towers, professional conspiracy theorists and Russian-government disinformation specialists.
In general, it works like this: Either Russian operatives or conspiracy sites (often on Facebook or YouTube) invent and report falsehoods about 5G. When one group invents a lie, the others report and amplify it until the idea is "everywhere."
Concern about 5G by the public is detected by social media algorithms, which then is exploited to entice people down conspiracy theory rabbit holes until some become seriously radicalized.
Russia's role in all this is not a "theory," but plain to see.
State-owned media explicitly and enthusiastically promotes the benefits of 5G in Russia and in the Russian language. But in English, on outlets like Russia Today, they spread false conspiracy theories about 5G.
Russia Today (RT), which routinely calls 5G radio waves "radiations," has claimed that 5G is a "dangerous experiment on humanity” that “might kill you.” RT has reported without evidence that 5G may cause learning disabilities in children, brain cancer, infertility, autism, heart tumors and Alzheimer’s disease.
More recently, Russian disinformation operatives or online conspiracy theories have claimed that the coronavirus pandemic is a lie to cover for sickness caused by 5G. Or, that 5G spreads the coronavirus. Or, that 5G is a ruse to convince people to get a fake vaccine that is actually an injected tracking microchip. (Bill Gates is often associated with this last one, for some reason.)
There are many 5G conspiracy theories. Warner reportedly may have believed that 5G was either used to spy on Americans or that it's harming and killing people.
Authorities fear copycat attacks by other 5G conspiracy theorists. And the attacks are surely coming.
In Europe, anti-5G activists have taken to destroying 5G towers with fire. In the UK alone, at least 159 towers have been destroyed through arson attacks.
The biggest threat to the adoption of 5G wireless is activists, radicals and terrorists who have been conned by disinformation and conspiracy theories. They will protest, mob city council meetings to oppose new towers, harass telecom workers, burn towers and blow up telephone company buildings.
If the 5G angle to the Nashville bombing pans out, then this is primarily a technology story as much as it is a story about terrorism, mental illness and social isolation. Technology journalists should take the lead on this story. Here’s my list of 6 reasons why:
At issue is the technology itself
Conspiracy theorists believe 5G is an attack by (or enabled by) technology companies
The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and the radicalization of social media users is a byproduct of the social network business model
Activists and terrorists will probably slow down the adoption of 5G, which will slow down expected advancements in medicine, self-driving cars, smart cities and many other developments
The best two solutions are: 1) better information to counter the disinformation; and 2) artificial intelligence (AI) that can spot dangerous conspiracy theories on social sites and delete them before they spread
The AI that deletes assumed disinformation will itself become a problem that tech journalists will need to address, because of the implications of false positives
As I've been saying for two years, public resistance to 5G, including false conspiracy theories, will be the foundational factor in the suppression of next-generation wireless and a world of benefits from that technology.
It's up to us -- technology enthusiasts, technology journalists and technology industry executives to take the lead in countering dangerous 5G disinformation and conspiracy theory radicalization.