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Lord Sugar has come under fire for sharing a coronavirus conspiracy theory on social media.
The Apprentice star tweeted a claim by a Japanese scientist that Covid-19 was man-made.
The independent fact-checking organization Full Fact then denied the claims.
A statement on its website read: “Various Facebook posts claim that Nobel Prize-winning scientist Professor Tasuku Honjo has said that the coronavirus is not ‘natural.’ The claim was also shared on Twitter, including by Lord Sugar. Many readers have asked us to verify this. This claim is false. “
Lord Sugar then tweeted to say that he believed his previous tweet was “fake news,” but defended his decision to share it. He wrote: “I just passed it on. I didn’t write it. “
When a Twitter user asked Lord Sugar what the source of the information was in his original tweet, he replied, “Who knows?”
In another post to someone who had told him to “focus on removing fake news from your feed,” he said, “Close your face.”
Earlier this week, Professor Honjo released a statement through Kyoto University about his name used to spread unfounded conspiracy theories.
It read: “In the wake of the unprecedented pain, economic loss and global suffering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, I am deeply saddened that my name and that of Kyoto University have been used to spread false accusations and misinformation.”
On Wednesday, the digital, culture, media and sports minister, Baroness Barran, urged celebrities not to “fan the flames” around the coronavirus by spreading misinformation.
He also declared the need for people to follow public health guidelines when members of the House of Lords warned of an increase in “fake news.”
On Monday, conservative MP Julian Knight, who chairs the committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports, suggested that Twitter should remove the verified “blue mark” status for accounts that shared misinformation about the pandemic.
He said to the Commons, “Some of the most pernicious pieces of disinformation, like [false claims linking coronavirus and] 5G and let’s be frank, the lie about bogus government NHS accounts has been amplified by verified blue tick users on Twitter. “
Lord Sugar has been reached for comment.
