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Fact Check: How conspiracy theory on Prof Lieber spread like wildfire


12 April 2020  

Time taken to read : 2 Minute


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KATHMANDU: A conspiracy theory went viral on social media alleging a Harvard-based scientist Dr Charles Lieber, a Harvard professor, of creating the coronavirus and selling it to China.

Was it true? There was a confusion after federal agents arrested Lieber. But what was the reality?

In fact, Lieber, a nano-scientist, had no link with coronavirus. He was charged as he was found to be lying about his affiliation with a Chinese university and his participation in a Chinese recruitment program.

He was neither accused of being a spy nor did have any connection to the novel coronavirus.

Several messages with video clips were circulated on social media, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. The messages claimed that the US authorities arrested Dr Lieber for creating coronavirus and selling it to communist China.

Later, it was found to be misleading. Lieber was arrested in January 2020 making fraudulent statements to US federal authorities about the funds that he had allegedly received from Beijing.

Several social media users posted videos with clippings of a US news channel “WCVB” — with the caption: “USA discovered the person who made and sold the #coronavirus to #China.”

Interestingly, the iterations of the claim were shared in several multiple languages and over 80,000 times on Facebook as of April first week.

A post claimed that the US discovered the person who manufactured and sold novel coronavirus bio-weapon to China.”

It so happened that Lieber was somehow connected to coronavirus as the Chinese university he was involved with was in Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began.

It was after all a coincidence!

(With inputs from Agencies)

Publish Date : 12 April 2020 11:40 AM

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