An imminent third world war? A major cyber attack launched by global elites? – conspiracy theories are spreading on the Internet after an unprecedented IT failure in the Microsoft system caused problems at a global level for many companies, including some in the aviation, financial, mass media, and other industries, writes AFP on Saturday.
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A flawed update to Microsoft’s Windows operating systems affected the entire planet on Friday, grounding planes, sending workers out of work and disrupting financial markets, according to France Presse.
US cyber security group CrowdStrike, whose software was behind the outage, ruled out a cyber attack or a cyber security issue.
But that hasn’t stopped the proliferation of conspiracy theories on social media, many of which have removed safeguards that prevent the spread of false information. Illustration of the fact that, these days, informational chaos almost systematically follows a global event, notes AFP.
“I read somewhere that World War III will mainly be a cyber war”wrote a user on the X platform.
For some, the computer outage was nothing more than a cyber attack launched by the World Economic Forum, a foundation that brings together officials, heads of multinationals, bankers, billionaires and even intellectuals and that meets every year in the luxurious Swiss ski resort of Davos.
“Global Audience”
Those who share this false theory rely on an old video, available on the Forum website, which warns of the possibility of a “cyber attack with characteristics similar to those of the coronavirus”.
The video warns that the only way to stop the cyber attack would be to disconnect the millions of vulnerable devices from the networks.
The World Economic Forum has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, convinced of the existence of a caste of elites with obscure objectives working for private purposes under the pretext of solving the world’s problems.
“The proliferation of conspiracy theories following major global events like this plume is a sad testament to the volatile nature of the information ecosystemRafi Mendelsohn, vice president of the Cyabra company, which specializes in the fight against disinformation, told AFP.
“What’s unique about these types of events is how social networks, forums, and messaging apps facilitate the rapid dissemination of posts, allowing theories to quickly gain ground and reach a global audience.”.
Without guarantees and without effective moderation, the networks are simply overwhelmed by these theories and confusion reigns in this torrent of misinformation.
“Malicious Motives”
“This raises the broader issue of combating fake news and disinformation,” appreciates Michael Mosser, director of a disinformation research center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mosser adds that “the level of trust in reliable sources has decreased so much that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories that “seem to be true” than in factual information.
The outage was caused by an error in a security program update for Windows operating systems. CrowdStrike founder George Kurtz tried to reassure users by saying the bug is “under correction,” but that didn’t stop netizens from speculating.
“It is difficult to counter this misinformation with factual explanations because the issue is very technicalMosser says.
Explaining that the problem stems from a misconfigured system file and that a fix is in progress may be a good approach, but one that is not believed by those prone to see malicious motives behind errors, he added.
