At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.
The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.
Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.
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I swear it’s always the same in .world
Post: “America proven to have done yet another thing wrong”
First comment: “BuT rUsSiA aNd ChInA?!!?!!!1!!11!”
For the record, this is a report coming from Reuters, the reports that Russia spread misinformation about COVID came from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center
Insane degrees of whataboutism
I usually see the opposite: some post about Russia or China doing something shitty and a bunch of “but the US!!!” comments. Too much whataboutism all around.
I remember the US Airforce chief in 2017 suggesting that the US should have their own troll army. I guess that’s now implemented.
Skankhunt42 reporting for duty
It’s almost like it’s noteworthy that the US is not unique in this shittiness, and it’s fucking awful of all the countries who did this.
The information about Russia did not come solely from the State Department: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/politics/covid-vaccines-russian-disinformation.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
And frankly, with the disinformation campaigns we definitively know Russia is doing, Volodya Ilich, it’s not farfetched to think Russia would do this. Especially considering how brutally Covid hit Russia and the vaccine skepticism they had domestically.
From your own article:
“Graphika has tracked disinformation that is probably spread by a group affiliated with people who used to work with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which propagated disinformation during the 2016 election. […] While the group advances Moscow’s strategic narratives, it is unclear what precise ties, if any, it has to the Russian government”
The best link they could make between the posts and the Russian Government is “it was PROBABLY spread by a group AFFILIATED with people who USED TO work with the Saint Petersburg-based…”. Come on, man.
That happens to be a reference to Lenin because I’m a socialist. The current Russian government on its downwards spiral to Fascism is the polar opposite of what socialism represents. Maybe stop being racist against anything with Russian roots, there’s plenty of opposition against the oligarchic imperialist government. It’s not far-fetched that the russian government would do this, but that’s entirely not the point of the post. The post is saying “America does evil thing” and the first comment that pops up on my screen is “oh, so just like Russia?”. No. Not "just like Russia. Just like the USA because it’s a force for evil in the world in itself.
Except that one is still going strong today… Like, how nuts is that? I have family that literally went full anti-vax since that point. Fully vaccinated before the pandemic.