Anti-Semitic extremists have been circulating on dark web forums an allegation that the novel coronavirus was originally developed “by Jews” in Chinese laboratories.
When it comes to efforts to put the blame on a certain nation or an ethnic/religious group regarding the emergence or the spread of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, dark web, a part of the internet that is not indexed by Google, has been as prolific as the clear web.
The dangerous new conspiracy theory involving a Jewish-Chinese collaboration has been voiced in an article in Haaretz by Flora Cassen, an Associate Professor of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
As part of a discussion on a dark web forum, according to Cassen, it was asserted that not only the virus was artificially generated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which is the epicenter of the outbreak, but that it was also a master plan by the Jews.
The user’s claim was supported by other users, one of which posted a cartoon suggesting that “the Jews” used labs in China for their plan so that they could maintain “plausible deniability” for the economic crisis the world has been going through. “It’s not Chinese. It’s the JEW FLU!” the tagline of the cartoon said.
The anti-Semitic comments pouring into the thread concluded that the objective behind the alleged move was for Jews to “preserve their existing power” and “to consolidate their gains.”
