DHS Warns of 5G Conspiracy Theory | AI Helping Fake News | German Extremists, and more

The Tiny U.S. Agency Fighting COVID Conspiracy Theories Doesn’t Stand a Chance (Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg)
Many conspiracy theories circulated widely online as the virus spread, prompting warnings of an “infodemic” from public health officials. In late February, a little-known division of the U.S. State Department, the Global Engagement Center, or GEC, said the Russian governmenthad pushed the rumor that Bill Gates and his philanthropic foundation have created and disseminated the coronavirus. On 8 May, the GEC said it had identified a network of fake Twitter accounts being used to spread disinformation, this time on behalf of China.
The consensus view in Washington is that the GEC, established in 2016 and employing just 120 of the State Department’s 75,000 staff, hasn’t accomplished much. But Senator Bob Portman (R-Ohio) and other supporters believe it turned a corner in 2019 with the appointment of a new director, Lea Gabrielle.
The GEC faces many challenges, but hanging over all this is the U.S. government’s biggest obstacle to eliminating misinformation: Gabrielle’s boss’s boss’s boss’s tendency to amplify the sorts of conspiracy theories the GEC was created to contain. Over the past three months, President Trump has lurched from downplaying the significance of the virus—comparing it to the flu and claiming that it would, “like a miracle,” disappear on its own within months—to implicitly calling for people to disobey shelter-in-place orders, even ones that followed his administration’s own guidelines. The White House and its allies have also increasingly begun to suggest, without offering much evidence, that the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab. Most notoriously, Trump stood in the White House briefing room and proposed a version of theMiracle Mineral Solution treatment, involving the injection of disinfectant. Officials in several states issued statements urging people not to ingest cleaning products, as did Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, the company that makes Lysol. (Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic.) The president’s antics have been, as he’s often boasted, must-see TV. They’ve also complicated the GEC’s already onerous job.

Anti-Vaxxers Are Already Opposing a Coronavirus Vaccine that Doesn’t Exist, and Their Movement Could Mean the Virus Never Goes Away(Anna Medaris Miller, Business Insider)
Anti-vaxxers are already gearing up their fight against vaccination with a COVID-19 vaccine, when it is developed, worrying experts that that hope for a coronavirus-safe world will be dashed. Vaccination against the COVID-19 “is not just about getting through the current crisis,” Emily Toth Martin, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health told Business Insider.”If this virus stays around, we need a vaccine to prevent resurgences in future generations.”

Germany Far Right: Explosives Found at Elite Soldier’s Home (BBC)
German police investigating links between the military and the far right have seized weapons and explosives at the home of a special forces soldier. German military intelligence (MAD) said in January there were 592 suspected far-right cases in the army last year. In March, officials said they had identified 27 people as far-right extremists. The KSK, considered the most secretive unit in the army, is seen as a particular problem. It has some 1,000 soldiers trained for crisis situations such as freeing hostages abroad and 20 of them have reportedly come under investigation.