The Wall Street journal reported complaints about 5G as early as 2018. The contingent against 5G feared health risks and the aesthetics of 5G infrastructure alike. The Anti-5Gers are falling for fake facts, misinformation and intentional fear campaigns without bothering to fact check their information.
Anti-5Gers have claimed that there has been no research done that examines the possible health risks of 5G. Members of Swiss anti-5G groups like Frequencia preach theories, such as experiments have already found 5G to be dangerous, but the government is keeping this information from us and that it will increase our contact with radiation to the point that it causes cancer.
The founder of ReclaimTheFacts, Peter Metzinger, was asked to write a column about misinformation on 5G for Topsoft magazine. Where he finds it incomprehensible how basic facts are often ignored when people make arguments that 5G will put in place dangerous new radio frequencies or radiation.
In reality, 5G is the 5th generation of data networks for your mobile phone. It is essentially upgraded software that can transmit data faster than the older versions. It can easily be installed where 3G and 4G antennas already exist.
These anti-5G arguments are not new, they have been repeated by critics in the mobile phone debate for decades like a broken record. They are not scientifically accurate and they never have been. In reality, for decades now no one has found mobile radio waves to have negative effects on our health.
Instead of taking these facts as an indication of 5G’s harmlessness, opponents to 5G are protesting against 5G as if it is completely different from past generations of data or creating a new form of “radiation.”
The fact is that this latest network is based on the same signal carriers as all the generations before it. They all use electromagnetic waves, which have been used for radio and TV signals for decades. Additionally, researchers have not brought forward any evidence that electromagnetic waves could have any harmful effects on our health.
Some of the frequencies used by 5G are the same as those used with 3G and 4G. Therefore, 5G does not use completely new frequencies or “radiation,” as many critics would have us believe.
5G is primarily a software upgrade, it is similar to when your computer software gets an upgrade. It is just like when your computer uses RAM to speed up. The existing software is being replaced by new software that can process larger amounts of data more quickly. In addition, the hardware has the potential to take advantage of the new developments in technology.
Just like when your computer has a software upgrade and you do not have to buy the newest addition of the computer in order to use it, in most of Switzerland, the 4G network is equipped to handle 5G software without needing upgraded hardware.
5G critics are up in arms about the new network because they believe it is something completely new and unexplored. To reiterate, new hardware is not being installed immediately and the frequencies being used are not completely new. The bottom line is that resistance to 5G is a rebellion against a necessary software upgrade. Members of the rebellion are using arguments based on misunderstandings that have been purposely created by disinformation campaigns. The question must be asked, have 5G opponents really checked their facts?
ReclaimTheFacts
