THREAD: As the world battled the coronavirus last year, China was waging another struggle online: pushing the idea that the virus was a U.S.-made bioweapon.
Read more from @AP’s @ekinetz: http://apne.ws/xI9gzhB pic.twitter.com/6eSko0A89N
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Rumors that the coronavirus was engineered appeared immediately on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. Within three months, they had taken root in millions of people’s minds.
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The chaos was, in part, manufactured,
@AP and@DFRLab found in a nine-month analysis of millions of social posts and articles. Leaders and allied media in China, Russia, Iran and the U.S. were superspreaders of politically expedient conspiracy theories.http://apne.ws/k7WSzfUShow this thread -
At first, China worked to contain COVID conspiracy theories. But after weeks of fiery rhetoric from President Trump and top Republicans, Beijing fought back. China launched what may be its first truly global digital disinfo campaign.pic.twitter.com/sMyp6rkroO
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Tweets by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, which broadcast speculation that the U.S. Army engineered COVID-19, was cited over 99,000 times, in at least 54 languages, by accounts with hundreds of millions of followers. Then Chinese state media syndicated his ideas.
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During the first half of 2020, there were millions of coronavirus-related interactions on Twitter with 829 accounts linked to the Chinese, Russian and Iranian governments. Chinese state media and Foreign Ministry accounts were among the most retweeted.
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China’s foreign ministry says it resolutely rejects disinformation, but will defend itself against the aggression of hostile forces seeking to politicize the epidemic.https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epidemics-media-122b73e134b780919cc1808f3f6f16e8 …
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Learn more about some of the people and groups behind some of the most viral misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus, as identified in a 9-month investigation by
@AP and@DFRLab.https://apnews.com/article/conspiracy-theories-iran-only-on-ap-media-misinformation-bfca6d5b236a29d61c4dd38702495ffe …Show this thread
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Now you are spreading misinformation since U.S haven't been investigated yet. Just because it was released in Wuhan doesn't mean that it wasn't U.S that released it. It's quite possible.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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