DISINFO: Authoritarian trends in the COVID-19 lockdown are a harbinger of the future
SUMMARY
What will 6 months of Covid-19 do to our society? Only certain thing is we’ll be in a state… and the STATE will be IN CONTROL. What Covid-19 has already accomplished is the final nail in the coffin of the phoney post-war ideological battle between free-marketeers and state ‘socialists’. There has been no argument. There has been no political debate. But the state has won, and everything else will follow. If we thought yesterday’s tendency towards technocracy was strong, we haven’t seen anything yet. The authoritarian trends already on display in the current lockdown are perhaps a harbinger of a future society run along managerial principles.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory with no evidence given; this is part of the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign around the coronavirus, implying that the COVID-19 pandemic represents the end of democracy and open societies and will lead to authoritarian takeover. See similar cases that the COVID-19 outbreak is a pretext to gain control of the world population and introduce tyranny, and that COVID-19 is a political move to install hegemony. This case also plays into the idea of "imminent collapse", one of the master narratives used in pro-Kremlin disinformation. It is used to spread demoralisation and self-doubt among target audiences, as well as to sow discord, panic, and diminish trust in national authorities, the EU and international institutions. The national lockdown measures to encourage social distancing are a temporary restriction, based on recommendations by the World Health Organisation and other health authorities, to limit the spread of the virus in a short period of time, which could overwhelm healthcare systems and result in more deaths.