The US military staged an undercover social media campaign at the height of the pandemic to smear the Chinese Covid vaccine, Reuters has reported. In other words, they spread misinformation and disinformation.
The Pentagon’s campaign to disparage the Chinese vaccine ran between the spring of 2020 and mid-2021. The agency claimed on Friday that it focused on the Philippines before spreading to other parts of Asia and the Middle East.
The Pentagon relied on fake social media accounts impersonating Filipino users to disseminate claims that China’s Sinovac vaccine, test kits, and face masks were of poor quality.
Reuters said that its investigation found at least 300 accounts on Twitter/X that matched the descriptions provided by the former US military officials who told journalists about the campaign.
A senior US Defense Department official confirmed to Reuters that a clandestine social media campaign against Sinovac occurred but declined to reveal further details.
The Pentagon Uses a Variety of Platforms to Lie
The Pentagon on Friday stood by its decision to conduct a clandestine disinformation campaign in the Philippines in 2020 that aimed to sow doubt about China’s COVID-19 vaccine during the height of the global pandemic.
A Pentagon spokesperson told the agency that the US military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the US, allies, and partners.” Beijing was the one to start a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the US for the spread of COVID-19,” she claimed.
The Philippines disinformation campaign marks an unusual use of military power in a country that has often been a U.S. ally in a strategically crucial region and at a time of great public health risks, Military.com has reported.
That does wonders for our credibility.
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