Not least on the social media platforms whose role as the most efficient mediums of transmission make them perfect, global coronavirus myth-machines. You don’t have to believe politicians, they are saying, listen to the scientists. But in the social media whorl, amidst all the insight and expertise, we are also living in a Govian world where “we have had enough of experts”, and anything goes. Conspiracy thrives – the virus was manufactured in a US lab, by Bill Gates, or China, as a weapon of war. India is the biggest market for the app, with more than 400 million users, and an influence that is terrifying.

Source: The Irish Times March 18, 2020 00:11 UTC