According to coronavirus conspiracy theories: Bushido rebukes Youtuber

Fake news is currently spreading like wildfire. In the past few days, news has been circulating that supermarkets would shorten opening hours due to the corona virus, cures promised tips in chain letters, drinking chlorine dioxide allegedly helps against Covid-19. But not only false reports circulated, also conspiracy theories.

One of the spreaders is the Youtuber Leon Lovelock, a tall, broad-bred man with a boxer cut and a three-day beard. 381,000 users have subscribed to his channel. According to the description, Lovelock deals with entertainment, motivation and German rap. In his latest video entitled "The Corona Conspiracy: How They Slowly Paralyze Us", he now exposes the supposedly true background of the corona pandemic.

Bushido: "Ashamed of your insane statements"

The 26-year-old from Mannheim sits in a stairwell – and gives a confused 20-minute monologue about scaremongering, control, restriction of freedom and "THE up there". To cut a long story short: Lovelock spreads conspiracy theories about the coronavirus under the guise of "my channel, my platform, my right to say what I think and feel".

Given its reach and thousands of fans, such statements can have a devastating impact on opinion formation. Especially on the young people. After all, his video has already been viewed more than 200,000 times and has been "liked" by more than 11,000 users. Apparently rapper Bushido thought so too. In any case, he felt compelled to make a public statement.

In an Instagram story, he wrote: "I hope that your parents and grandparents will survive this virus well and unscathed, because hopefully as many people as possible will be considerate of each other. Shame on your insane, arrogant and unworldly statements. Your interviews are fine the last junk, but your limited last video is the cherry on the cake. "

No rethinking at Youtuber Leon Lovelock

The 41-year-old was not the only one who made a public statement. The rapper PA Sports also published a statement in his Instagram story. Unlike Bushido, however, he did not explicitly address the Youtuber, but generally spoke out against conspiracy theories: "There is a lot of fake news circulating on the Internet, in which any scenarios are predicted. Keep a cool head."

Leon Lovelock's statements did not cause a rethink. On the contrary: on Tuesday evening he shared a video of the doctor Wolfgang Wodarg. The latter claims that the coronavirus pandemic is alarmist. The Youtuber does not seem to know that he mixes facts and speculations and therefore even receives interview requests from right-wing blogs. Instead, he wants to publish "normal videos" again over the next few days.

swell: Instagram / "Watson" / "Correctiv" / Youtube

This article was originally published on stern.de.