Roughly 2 million tweets spread dangerous misinformation and hoaxes about the coronavirus, according to an unpublished State Department report

Claudio Furlan/Lapresse via Associated Press

• Millions of tweets have spread dangerous conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, an unpublished State Department report said, according to The Washington Post.
• Many posts have offered baseless and untrue allegations about the outbreak's origins, speculating that it was created as a bioweapon or manufactured by the CIA or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Some of the hoaxes have appear to have been propelled by fake accounts, the report said.
• Major social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter began taking action weeks ago to limit the spread of conspiracy theories.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

An unpublished State Department report found that roughly 2 million tweets spread dangerous and untrue conspiracy theories about the coronavirus while the outbreak began to spread beyond China, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

The State Department report flagged a number of wildly inaccurate myths, such as theories positing that the coronavirus was created as a bioweapon or was made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to The Post.

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