+++ Press release: During the coronavirus crisis one subject is unfortunately booming again in particular: conspiracy myths +++
Even during a very early stage of the crisis we were hearing: Israel, or “the Jews”, had brought Covid-19 into the world. This references the centuries-old lie about Jewish well poisoners, which was already intended in the Middle Ages to justify the persecution of Jewish women and men.
At present we perceive that some actors are jumping on this bandwagon and, in some cases daily, feeding their followers conspiracy myths. We are experiencing the effect, among other things, at the current so-called “hygiene demos” in Germany, where participants in the demonstrations do not even shrink from violence. We regard this as an extremely worrying development, since it must be assumed here that the violence will not remain confined to the demonstrations but may, if applicable, also discharge itself in later acts of terror by radicalised citizens.
This complex of issues is not a new subject. Conspiracy myths have existed for several thousand years. In their overwhelming majority they frequently issue in antisemitic stereotypes and accusations. This has a direct impact on Jewish women and men, as can be seen from the example of the attacks in Halle, Pittsburgh and Poway. These radical right-wing attackers evidently radicalised mainly via so-called “imageboards” on the internet, through which to this day the most abhorrent hatred of Jews and antisemitic conspiracy myths are spread daily and unimpeded.
Besides the right-wing extremist camp, however, we also perceive these developments in left-wing extremist and Islamist milieus. Particular attention should be paid here to the so-called “Querfront” (cross-front), a blending of left-wing and right-wing protagonists and positions, since the most prominent disseminators are probably united there. There is often talk here of a “New World Order” (NWO), in which the peoples of the earth are supposedly to be subjected to an authoritarian, supranational (predominantly Jewish) world government that is to subjugate humanity.
All in all, we consider the increasingly widespread conspiracy myths and fake news to be extremely threatening – not only for us Jewish women and men. We see our society and democracy as a whole in danger should it not prove possible to stop this viral development.
On this, Daniel Kohn, member of the board of the WerteInitiative – jüdisch-deutsche Positionen: “In these times we are experiencing extremely short radicalisation processes reaching right into the centre of society. The abrupt rise in antisemitic conspiracy myths, especially also on social media, is more than worrying. We citizens, but also politics, must dynamically put a stop to this development so that this societal virus does not get out of hand before our eyes.”
In our view, a campaign against conspiracy myths and fake news is urgently needed, one that uses the media to make fact checks on the currently most dominant conspiracy myths available to citizens as promptly as possible. We understand the graphics published on this by the federal government so far as a first, trial step in the right direction. This should be accompanied by a checking office (for example at the Bundespresse- und Informationsamt) to which citizens can turn if they are unsure whether a report is true or untrue. If, for example, reports on one topic are submitted in large numbers here, the office set up for this purpose should swiftly produce a fact check and make it available via its social media as well as press and media channels.
