U.S. Military Ran Hundreds of Anti-China Twitter Accounts Spreading Anti-Vax Propaganda: Report

The Pentagon was down hundreds of Twitter accounts spreading anti-vaccine propaganda arsenic a mode to undermine China during the tallness of the covid-19 pandemic, according to an explosive study from Reuters Friday. U.S. authorities officials confirmed to Reuters the beingness of the campaign, which started nether erstwhile president Donald Trump successful mid-2020 and continued nether President Joe Biden until the outpouring of 2021.

The U.S. propaganda campaign, which included “at slightest 300" Twitter accounts on with accounts connected Facebook and Instagram, archetypal targeted societal media users successful the Philippines. But the effort yet dispersed retired to absorption connected radical much broadly successful Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East utilizing accounts that were progressive for astatine slightest 5 years.

The U.S. authorities posts connected Twitter, present known arsenic X, questioned the prime of look masks and covid-19 trial kits, according to Reuters, and besides dispersed disinformation astir China’s Sinovac vaccine, the archetypal that would go disposable to radical successful the Philippines. As Reuters notes, the Philippines had 1 of the worst covid-19 vaccination rates successful Southeast Asia and 1 of the highest decease rates successful the region.

The propaganda run was reportedly tally retired of the U.S. military’s intelligence operations halfway astatine MacDill Air Force Base successful Tampa, Florida, and utilized a hashtag, #ChinaAngVirus, which means “China is the virus” successful Tagalog. X deleted galore of the accounts associated with the run aft Reuters asked astir it.

From Reuters:

Tailoring the propaganda run to section audiences crossed Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon utilized a operation of fake societal media accounts connected aggregate platforms to dispersed fearfulness of China’s vaccines among Muslims astatine a clip erstwhile the microorganism was sidesplitting tens of thousands of radical each day. A cardinal portion of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, due to the fact that vaccines sometimes incorporate pork gelatin, China’s shots could beryllium considered forbidden nether Islamic law.

While the run was started nether Trump’s administration, Reuters discovered the effort continued good into President Biden’s clip successful the White House, contempt being warned astir what was happening by executives astatine Facebook. Meta adjacent held a Zoom telephone with members of the National Security Council, who would yet termination the program, adjacent though the treatment initially “became tense.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Reuters was capable to get an anonymous elder Defense Department authoritative to admit the beingness of the propaganda campaign. The authorities typically denies engagement erstwhile intelligence operations are exposed. The nonfiction besides quotes an unnamed Pentagon spokesperson who tried to rationalize the deceit by pointing retired China had launched its ain disinformation run “to falsely blasted the United States” for the dispersed of covid-19.

The Reuters communicative doesn’t notation galore U.S. officials by name, extracurricular of presidents Biden and Trump, but the nonfiction does explicate that Jonathan Braga, a subject commandant overseeing Southeast Asia, was instrumental successful pushing disinformation online to antagonistic China’s influence. The programme received the support of Mark Esper, Trump’s Secretary of Defense. At slightest fractional a twelve unnamed employees astatine the State Department objected, according to Reuters.

Oddly, 1 of the things that whitethorn person helped termination the anti-vaccine run whitethorn person been however incompetently it was run.

From Reuters:

The Pentagon’s audit concluded that the military’s superior contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to fell the root of the fake accounts, said a idiosyncratic with nonstop cognition of the review. The reappraisal besides recovered that subject leaders didn’t support capable power implicit its psyop contractors, the idiosyncratic said.

General Dynamics IT precocious won a $493 cardinal contract for much intelligence operations, if you tin judge it.

Social media has made it overmuch easier for nation-state actors to dispersed disinformation, but the U.S. authorities was distributing propaganda successful overseas countries agelong earlier Twitter and Facebook were invented. The U.S. authorities spent years moving articles nether fake bylines successful newspapers astir the satellite successful the 1950s and ‘60s.

The U.S. Information Agency (USIA), America’s overseas propaganda limb during the Cold War, would constitute articles nether names similar Guy Sims Finch to beforehand U.S. concern interests. Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petition with the CIA astir the run successful 2016 but was denied connected the grounds that we couldn’t supply names of the existent radical who wrote nether that name, a information to supposedly guarantee the privateness rights of those authorities agents were respected.

The CIA infamously utilized a fake hepatitis vaccination run successful Pakistan aft the panic attacks of September 11, 2001, that was really a screen to conduct DNA testing successful a concealed run to find Osama bin Laden. That run caused a backlash against each vaccinations successful the region, harming nationalist wellness successful immeasurable ways for generations to come.

More recently, the U.S. has been exposed to moving societal media campaigns successful Cuba to sow choler astatine the Communist government, adjacent launching its own mentation of Twitter. Those efforts were archetypal launched successful 2010 and 2013 nether President Barack Obama.