New York (CNN Business) False claims about how the coronavirus began, the number of people infected and promises of magical cures are spreading on the internet. The rise in false or misleading online posts about the virus, which has infected thousands of people primarily in mainland China, could once again test the ability of social media companies to handle viral misinformation on their platforms. Maarten Schenk from Lead Stories, a fact-checking organization that works with Facebook, said his team has observed the sharing of conspiracy theories on multiple social platforms about the origins of the virus. "It always has to be something sinister," Schenk said of the conspiracy theorists' misinformation, which includes false claims that the virus was the creation of a government. Some people, Schenk said, are "not trusting the narrative about the numbers of deaths and infections."

Source: CNN January 29, 2020 20:02 UTC