A man expressed his displeasure with the latest mobile network technology by throwing a carton’s worth of eggs around inside a Campbell River store.
Two employees at the Quinsam Communications Discovery Centre location were going about their business near the end of their work day Saturday afternoon when the man – wearing a red sweatshirt and a grey bandana across his face – strolled in, and began yelling about 5G technology.
“This has got nothing to do with you, boys,” he said, before tossing the first egg.
He seemed to think people were using the 5G network to access his cellular devices, and by the profanity he was using, as well the eggs he was throwing, seemed quite upset about it.
Co-owner of the store, Ryan Toporowski, said the outburst seemed conspiracy-based.
“There are a lot of customers who from time-to-time ask questions about the new capabilities of the networks provided by Telus, and we are able to provide them with accurate information,” he said.
“But in regards to individuals such as the person who came into our store who have a different idea about the way the world works, it’s kind of hard to help people when they don’t even give you a chance.”
While it may be easy to make light of the situation, Toporowski said once the people at Quinsam reflected on it, everyone agreed they just hope the man is found, and that he gets the help he needs.
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Const. Maury Tyre with the Campbell River RCMP said a file has been created for the incident, and also noted a similar occurrence happened in Port Alberni on the same day. While Tyre did not confirm where, Toporwoski volunteered it was at Tom Harris Cellular.
Conspiracy theories centered around the new wireless network technology have spread quickly through social media channels over the course of the last two years.
Some argue 5G causes cancer, other that it kills birds, and some even suggest it is tied in with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In general there has been an increase in social media fueled issues that police have dealt with in recent years and a large part of that is the monstrous increase in social media usage,” Tyre said.
“The internet is an amazing tool to organize quickly, easily, and often anonymously, but it also comes with severe concerns of confirmation bias created by algorithms inside search engines and social media applications, which people really need to be aware of.”
ronan.odoherty@campbellrivermirror.com
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