During the height of COVID, the effort was designed to plant seeds of mistrust in China, according to an investigation conducted by Reuters.
A bombshell story from Reuters claims that during the height of the pandemic, the United States military utilized phony social media accounts to promote propaganda in the Philippines that was intended to discredit China’s COVID-19 vaccine. This propaganda was specifically aimed to disparage China’s vaccine. For the purpose of “countering what [the Pentagon]perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines,” the anti-vaccine campaign was carried out from the spring of 2020 to the middle of 2021, according to the findings of the study conducted by the journal. Through the year 2021, the Philippines saw low vaccination rates, even several months after China’s Sinovac vaccine arrived in the region. Furthermore, by November of that year, the country recorded approximately 50,000 deaths due to COVID.
An account in the year 2020 tweeted, “COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” This is an example of the anti-vaccine rhetoric that the United States continues to spread, as reported by Reuters. The myth that China’s vaccines were “haram,” or prohibited under Islamic law, was also promoted by the campaign. This was due to the fact that the vaccines contained a pig derivative in their composition.
Former military officers who talked with Reuters stated that the Pentagon had propaganda accounts on X, Facebook, and Instagram. In late 2020, Facebook executives told the Pentagon that the accounts had been detected and were engaging in a manner that was in violation of the policies of the network. In the end, however, some of these accounts were not removed, despite the fact that the Pentagon had previously stated that it would no longer use them for its anti-vaccine effort. During the course of its research, Reuters discovered at least 300 accounts that looked to be a part of the operation. Reuters informed X of these accounts. It was established that they were bots, and they were removed.
According to Reuters, the campaign was initiated after the Chinese government made accusations that were not supported by evidence that the dissemination of the COVID-19 could be traced back to the United States to begin with. A representative for the Pentagon made reference to China’s disinformation campaign in a statement that was sent to the outlet. The spokesperson stated that the military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the United States of America, allies, and partners.”