Anti-lockdown movements online are turning their attention to climate conspiracy theories.
Members of an online movement infected with pandemic conspiracies are shifting their focus - and are increasingly peddling falsehoods about climate change.
Originally from the UK, Matthew has been living in New Zealand for the past 20 years. The country is one of several that have aimed to completely stamp out Covid-19 through strict lockdowns. And recently, groups like the ones he's a part of have been sharing misleading claims not only about Covid, but about climate change. He sees "Covid and climate propaganda" as part of the same so-called plot.It's part of a larger pattern. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine Telegram groups, which once focused exclusively on the pandemic, are now injecting the climate change debate with the same conspiratorial narratives they use to explain the pandemic.
"Increasingly, terminology around Covid-19 measures is being used to stoke fear and mobilise against climate action," says the ISD's Jennie King."It's the fact that these are really neat vectors to get themes like power, personal freedom, agency, citizen against state, loss of traditional lifestyles - to get all of those ideas to a much broader audience."
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