‘Mole children’? Wild theories challenge seriousness of crisis

The video lasts 13 seconds and shows nothing more than the view from a car quietly driving past a hospital entrance. But the person who posted it on Twitter used the footage to sarcastically question reports of “apocalyptic conditions” at Mount Sinai Queens in New York City.

That video and dozens of others like it have been spreading on social media through the #FilmYourHospital hashtag. The people taking and posting videos of quiet scenes outside hospitals are promoting a right-wing conspiracy theory that fear-mongering media outlets and Democrats are intentionally exaggerating COVID-19’s deadly toll. The clip from Queens racked up more than 227,000 views in less than three weeks.

“It’s very sad because I’m working with a team of thousands of people who are putting their lives at risk. They are struggling every day to provide the best care they can in horrendous conditions,” said Dr. David Reich, president of Mount Sinai Queens and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

The Mount Sinai system has treated thousands of coronavirus patients.

Hospitals aren’t the only targets of the far-right fringe during the pandemic. The coronavirus has breathed life into old theories and inspired a mishmash of new ones, with a cast of villains that includes Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, 5G wireless technology, the United Nations and President Donald Trump’s political foes.

New York is also the setting for one of the wildest virus-related conspiracy theories circulating on social media — that the pandemic is masking a military operation to rescue thousands of deformed “mole children” from the clutches of sex traffickers in underground tunnels beneath medical tents recently put up in Central Park.

Many of the social media accounts driving that baseless story and the #FilmYourHospital campaign belong to followers of “QAnon,” a far-right, apocalyptic conspiracy theory that believes Trump is waging a secret campaign against “deep state” enemies and Satanworshipping Democrats who prey on children.

Alex Friedfeld, an investigative researcher for the Anti-Defamation League’s

Center on Extremism, said quarantine conditions are ripe for conspiracy theories to mutate and spread. The purveyors are scared and cooped up inside their homes with abundant free time to spend on the internet.

“We are in a time of crisis, so people are frightened,” he said. “They are looking for explanations. Conspiracy theories can be comforting because they basically place order on chaos.

A lot of them give you somebody to blame, and that can be comforting to people at an uncertain time.”

Other new conspiracy theories being fueled by the virus include one that claims maps show a link between 5G networks and coronavirus outbreaks. Another holds that Gates intends to use a COVID-19 vaccine to track and control the world’s population.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that COVID-19 misinformation is a poisonous threat to the world and urged social media organizations to do more to counter it.

Social media platforms say they are trying to stop the spread of coronavirus hoaxes and connect users with reliable information.