Staff writer, with CNAThe Criminal Investigation Bureau yesterday said that it had identified the suspect behind a Facebook post that said ingesting the highly toxic chemical cyanide could be used to protect against the 2019 novel coronavirus. The bureau received a report a day earlier that someone in the Facebook group “Taiwan & Japan” had posted potentially harmful misinformation about the virus, and later identified the suspect as a 29-year-old Taiwanese surnamed Yu (游). The now-deleted post said that “cyanide can be used to kill the novel coronavirus and prevent disease. Commenting on the case, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) wrote on Facebook yesterday, urging people not to repost news stories that seem questionable. He said that spreading fake news alleging that an infection could be treated with cyanide was obviously intended to harm people.
