Source: rwmalonemd.substack.com
In case you missed the Reuters news story, during 2020 and 2021, the Pentagon used fake social media accounts and bot farms to flood Filipinos with messaging about the ineffectiveness of Chinese PPE and China’s Sinovac (COVID-19) vaccine.
Just to be clear, I am not expressing any opinion regarding the safety and effectiveness of Sinovac. This story is about the US DoD intentionally spreading anti-vax disinformation.
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…
After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data….