Thread by @DisinfoLab

Rarely a state machinery is directly involved in disinformation campaign

Chinese govt. & state media pushed fake stories on #Covid origin with help of Russian Disinfo eco-system to push #FortDetrick narrative.

thedisinfolab.org/fort-detrick-d…

A thread

(1/n)

If you can’t convince them, confuse them, said Sun Tzu in his book ‘Art of Info-War’.

Well, at least that’s what Chinese MoFA officials are trying to do with the question of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus for the last 2 years.

(2/n)

At first China (and the pliant scientists in the US with vested interests with Wuhan lab) declared that the virus has a natural origin, even before its genome was fully decoded. Any questions about lab leak or otherwise were termed racist or Conspi-racist.

(3/n)

With new evidence emerging in course of time, questions about Wuhan resurfaced. They needed new distractions. At first Chinese media tried pushing fake stories about the virus origin from sewage in Spain, Italy, & France. Then the Indian subcontinent & Hawaii.

(4/n)

And finally settled for Fort Detrick

It was a better choice:
It was a bio-lab. Check.
Had an accident in 2019 (July). Check.
There were also cases of lung disease in the US (caused by vaping). Check.

Chinese DisInfo machinery loved it.

(5/n)

While the seed of a conspiracy was planted by Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky who declared the virus a US’ bio-weapon against China, it was an anonymous Twitter handle (rather absurdly named) that ‘confirmed’ that virus originated at Fort Detrick, US.

(6/n)

Thereafter an ‘expert’ from Shanghai Larry Romanoff provided a ‘coherent fake narrative’ about Fort Detrick. Larry is a businessman-turned-management-guru-turned-virus expert. He also claims to be a visiting faculty at prestigious Fudan University, Shanghai.

(7/n)

Larry wrote many articles back-to-back on the topic. Total 72, including some of the other shortcomings of the US. And guess where his articles were published? All on Russian media outlets – svpressa.ru, vpk-news and Russia Insider.

(8/n)

Subsequently, an ‘Indian Researcher’ at Fort Detrick (FD), curiously named Samantha Hill posted on FB that virus originated from FD. ‘She’ claimed that her senior Dr. Frank Plummer was assassinated to hide the truth. If only we didn’t have FB, we would never know so much!

(9/n)

The truth: Dr. Frank Plummer was a Canadian scientist, and HIV specialist, who died of a heart attack in Kenya where he had gone for celebrating the 40th anniversary of research collaboration. Curiously, Samantha’s post had likes/ comments mostly from Chinese FB handles!

(10/n)

Another journalist, Italian Fabio Giuseppe, wrote several articles on how US spread the virus in Italy & Europe! Fabio, an ‘Art & Wine’ expert turned Geopolitics expert.

& where did he publish? Veterans Today, BeforeItsNews & RussiaNewsNow-all Russian misinfo platforms.

(11/n)

A Perfect Recipe

The Fort Detrick story has all the ingredients: a Russian oracle, an anonymous Twitter handle, a Shanghai expert, an Indian researcher, an Italian journalist on top of Facebook and Russian media.

Voila! Chinese MoFA had hit jackpot.

(12/n)

Pakistan: a Side story

Oh btw, Veterans Today (that republished Fabio's theory) has many Pak luminaries on board- including PM Imran Khan. Not a typo. They are buddies, claimed VT founder Gordon Duff. Even IK’s Party PTI posted Duff’s video on its official FB page.

(13/n)

And what do Pak luminaries do?

You guessed it! Writing fake stories against India- such as it was India behind the 26/11 attack. Kashmir is a favorite too for all the fakery. Well, at least Pak players are now moving into higher circles of DisInfo networks. Quite a jump!

(14/n)

Getting back to the story:

The initial push for the FD conspiracy came in early 2020 but got lots of pushback. Lijian Zhao also got lots of flack for sharing Larry's article & the Media accused him of pushing conspiracy.

Zhao let it go, for the time being.

(15/n)

China was pushing natural origin, & by end of 2020 questions on possible leaks from Wuhan became too many to ignore. Vested interests of ‘scientists’ also surfaced, discrediting the theory.

The natural origin was no more the only possibility, & WHO team visited China.

(16/n)

And as if on cue, Samantha Hill's (Indian Researcher) FB post of Aug 2020 goes viral on Chinese social media in Jan 2021. China ‘expert’ Larry’s articles also get recycled, & more China ‘experts’ start pushing FD narrative - from Nathan to Lightfoot to Haiphong.

(17/n)

The Viral Petition

In a fully controlled internet, Chinese ‘netizens’ start an online petition seeking a probe into Fort Detrick! The Petition gets 25 million signs, but not without a ‘small help’ from state media GT yes, but even CGTN, Xinhua, & China Daily.

(18/n)

Great Resurgence of a conspiracy theory

MoFA Wolf Warriors decided that offense is best defense. If the virus had to leak, it better leaked from your lab! MoFA Spox Hua Chunying & Zhao Lijian were competing with each other, posting regular tweets, seeking a probe at FD.

(19/n)

It was a global campaign where State media’s language services along with MoFA Wolf Warriors in different countries were pushing the narrative in unison.

Award for Wolf Warrior in the Propaganda category goes to Chinese diplomats in India & Pak. Neighborhood first!

(20/n)

And #FortDetrick is also trending on social media

It was a ‘by book’ example of artificially generated trends on Twitter: posts from a small set of influencers is pushed through a large no. of recently created anonymous/fake handles aka Wumao/Tankies -Chinese troll army.

(21/n)

Data also confirmed that clusters in network were always around set of influencers– Chinese officials & state media handles. Incidentally, many Chinese official handles were created & got verified just before this trend!

A true state-sponsored info-war, if there was one.

(22/n)

But is it still a natural origin?

While MOFA and State Media were claiming it was a lab leak (though just not the Wuhan Lab, the other one), the Chinese scientists kept saying that virus had a natural origin!

(23/n)

And the Chinese State media does the impossible, with a ‘poker face’. They simultaneously claimed that the virus was of natural origin and also demanded a probe into fort Detrick for a possible lab leak. Well...

(24/n)

Confused?

Consult a ‘China expert’, who will tell you how this is a game of Go or yin-yang or dialectic materialism or maybe some 500 years futuristic strategy.
Not convinced?

Try info-war with Chinese characteristics.

(25/n)

But it's still effective

CPC machinery may be unable to convince anyone about virus origin at FD or any of the dozen other places, it was not even the point. The idea was to create enough confusion that any quest for virus origin is deemed hopeless & they are succeeding.

(26/n)

A worrisome trend

While infowar spread more than Covid, involvement of state machinery is still new & troubling trend.State officials’ views have extra weight & if they r set upon fake news, it'll be harder to counter

While we'll overcome #Covid one day,infowar will stay
(27/n)

Awareness is the only antidote.

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