If I receive an email which begins: “The World Deserves the Truth…. Please brace yourself for the following information I’m about to share with you”, I am not inclined to believe it. 

However, this particular one is so creative that it deserves to be shared. Apparently NASA and the Vatican Observatory learned in November that an asteroid was about to hit our planet. Soon afterwards, a top-secret UN meeting was convoked to develop a strategy to keep the world calm and give governments the best possible chance of maintaining public order. So they came up with the idea of releasing a coronavirus. Everyone would have to shelter at home. So that's why we are all washing out hands…. and waiting for annihilation. 

That does sound a bit far-fetched, but how do you deal with other conspiracy theories? The most popular one at the moment is Plandemic, a movie whose teaser has been censored by Google and Facebook. But is censorship the best strategy? 

Michael Cook
Should we suppress them or let them flourish?
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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

Latest posts by Michael Cook (see all)

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