Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise.

The Russian network RT America aired the segment, titled “A Dangerous ‘Experiment on Humanity,’” in covering what its guest experts call fifth generation’s (5G) dire health threats. US intelligence agencies identified the network as a principal meddler in the 2016 presidential election. Now, it is linking 5G signals to brain cancer, infertility, autism, heart tumors and Alzheimer’s disease — claims that lack scientific support. Yet even as RT America, the cat’s paw of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has been doing its best to stoke the fears of American viewers, President Putin, on Feb 20, ordered the launch of Russian 5G networks in a tone evoking optimism rather than doom. “We need to look forward,” he said, according to Tass, the Russian news agency. “The challenge for the upcoming years is to organize universal access to high-speed internet, to start operation of the fifth-generation communication systems.”

Analysts see RT’s attack on 5G as geopolitically bold: It targets a new world of interconnected, futuristic technologies that would reach into consumers’ homes, aid national security and spark innovative industries. Already, medical firms are linking up devices wirelessly to create new kinds of health treatments. “It’s economic warfare,” said Ryan Fox, chief operating officer of New Knowledge, a technology firm that tracks disinformation. “Russia doesn’t have a good 5G play, so it tries to undermine and discredit ours.”