Lord Alan Sugar has been bombarded with criticism for spreading fake coronavirus claims via his Twitter account.
The Apprentice host this afternoon (30 April) posted a screenshotted image falsely claiming that the Nobel laureate Dr Tasuka Honjo had declared Covid-19 “not natural” and “made” by China.
The message has been spread in various forms across the internet in recent weeks. On 27 April, Honjo decried the use of his name in spreading false information.
“In the wake of the pain, economic loss, and unprecedented global suffering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, I am greatly saddened that my name and that of Kyoto University have been used to spread false accusations and misinformation,” he wrote in a statement.
Numerous Twitter users slammed Sugar for spreading the claims, with some demanding that Twitter shut down his account in response.
“Please delete this,” wrote one follower. “It’s fake news and very dangerous.” Another added: “Get rid of this chump’s blue tick.”
Asked by a Twitter user for the source of the text in Sugar’s tweet, Sugar replied: “Who knows.”
When another person tweeted at Sugar that the text was “fake news”, Sugar wrote that he “just passed it on” and “didn’t write it”.
Nearly two hours after posting the original message, Sugar clarified that the Honjo quotes were fake, writing: “Looks like, to quote Donald [Trump], that was fake news…”
Sugar has yet to take down his original tweet, which has been retweeted more than a thousand times in the two hours since it was posted.
