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1/11 Rumors COVID was engineered appeared immediately on Weibo. Within 3 mos they had taken root in millions of people’s minds. Conspiracy believers were less likely to wear masks, socially distance and accept vaccination. How did this happen? https://bit.ly/3dhIrJc
2/11 The chaos was, in part, manufactured, AP and
@DFRLab found in 9-mo analysis of millions of social posts & articles. Leaders & allied media in China US Russia Iran were superspreaders of politically expedient conspiracies. It was a narrative arms race https://bit.ly/2LT5DSz
@DFRLab found in 9-mo analysis of millions of social posts & articles. Leaders & allied media in China US Russia Iran were superspreaders of politically expedient conspiracies. It was a narrative arms race https://bit.ly/2LT5DSz
3/11 At first, China worked to contain COVID conspiracies. But after weeks of fiery rhetoric from Trump & top Republicans, who campaigned to rebrand COVID “the China virus,” Beijing fought back. The CCP launched what may be its first truly global digital disinfo campaign.
4/11 Chinese diplomats only recently mobilized on Western social media platforms, tripling Twitter accounts and doubling Facebook accounts since mid-2019. Both are banned in China. With COVID, these accounts helped set and amplify messaging across platforms languages geographies.
5/11 A series of March tweets by MOFA spokesman Zhao Lijian, broadcasting speculation the U.S. Army engineered COVID, was cited over 99,000 times, in 54 languages, by accounts with hundreds of millions of followers. Then Chinese state media picked up and syndicated his ideas.
6/11 During 1H2020, there were millions of virus-related interactions on Twitter with 829 accounts linked to China, Russia, Iran. They reinforced each other's messaging, cross-referencing reports and sources, deepening their echo chamber of authenticity. https://bit.ly/37h3kR0
7/11 These networks show most retweeted accounts in a sample of more than 1.6 million interactions across 829 state-linked Chinese, Russian and Iranian Twitter accounts. Over time, Russian accounts have been heavily retweeted.
8/11 With COVID, Chinese accounts became a point of reference and helped drive conversation across these networks. Here are the most retweeted accounts for Jan-Jun 2020. China dominated.
9/11 Platforms vary in how they label conspiratorial content from state actors. Twitter slapped fact check label on MOFA’s @zlj517, but only in English. YouTube didn’t tell tens of thousands of viewers of a conspiratorial video from CGTN the content was government-funded.
10/11 Beijing continued to spread conspiracies about the virus’ origins long after Moscow stopped. Zhao’s Twitter followers have surged, topping 880K. He and his colleagues have growing fan base in China. (Check out Bilibili videos of MOFA’s best smackdowns. Rockstar treatment.)
11/11 MOFA told AP it has never and will never spread disinformation. “All parties should firmly say ‘no’ to the dissemination of disinformation,” but, “In the face of trumped-up charges, it is justified and proper to bust lies and clarify rumors by setting out the facts.”
