London: Twitter said on Wednesday it would tackle the spread of damaging conspiracy theories linking mobile phone technology with the coronavirus with a prompt to direct people searching for 5G to British government-verified information.

The theory, which has spread on social media, has resulted in attacks on mobile telecoms masts and abuse directed at engineers in Britain. Scientists, phone companies and the government have said it is completely untrue.

Twitter said the search prompt would inform users that the government had seen no link between 5G and COVID-19, and include a link to a government website with credible, factual and verified information in relation to 5G.

Katy Minshall, Twitter UK's head of government, public policy and philanthropy, said the move was the latest step in its focus on connecting people with authoritative information regarding COVID-19.