A popular social media conspiracy theory about a recent cluster of hantavirus cases claims that the word “hanta” means “scam,” “fraud,” or “nonsense” in “Hebrew slang.” That’s more or less where the theory ends and dark suggestion takes over. One is meant to conclude that the supposed Hebrew origins of the word mean that the hantavirus—a well-documented illness with outbreaks that go back several decades—is somehow a scam, perpetrated by either the Israeli government or some other undefined group of Jewish people.
None of this is true. Even the root linguistic claim is completely wrong: the word “hantavirus” comes from the Hantaan River in Korea, where the prototype virus was first identified. Nor is hantavirus, which is typically spread by close contact with infected rodents or their urine, saliva, or feces, a new illness: the virus was isolated in 1978 and cultivated in labs as far back as 1981. In New Mexico, hantavirus cases virtually occur annually; last year, Santa Fe resident Betsy Arakawa, the wife of actor Gene Hackman, died from the illness.
Yet in the past two weeks, the “Hebrew” claim has spread wildly across Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, and YouTube, through a fusillade of virtually identical posts, mostly shared by people who are neither public figures nor widely followed. The way the false notion has spread is an excellent demonstration not only of how a conspiracy theory is created and reinforced in real time, but of the ways tech platforms are either...
A popular social media conspiracy theory about a recent cluster of hantavirus cases claims that the word “hanta” means “scam,” “fraud,” or “nonsense” in “Hebrew slang.” That’s more or less where t...