Report: Pentagon Ran Year Long Social Media Campaign Against China’s COVID Vaccines
I never want to hear another peep about Chinese and Russian trolls.
A Reuters investigation revealed that the Pentagon launched an anti-vaccine campaign against China’s vaccine in the summer of 2020.
The military used social media to undermine any vaccines or aid coming out of China during COVID.
They started the campaign in the spring of 2020. The military expanded out of Southeast Asia but ended it in mid-2021.
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.
One fake account claimed, “COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!”
Another account said, “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”
Twitter removed the accounts once it determined “they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.”
The campaign grew to Central Asia and the Middle East:
Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.
Reuters did not see any evidence that the military targeted Americans with the campaign.
One senior Pentagon official confirmed the campaign happened, but did not provide detaiils.
A spokeswoman gave the usual word salad, saying the Pentagon “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the U.S., allies, and partners.”
The spokeswoman also pointed out that China had run a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19.”
Because two wrongs totally make a right, right? Good Lord. “Well, they did it first!!”
Military leaders responsible for the area pressed those in Washington to do something to counter China:
A senior U.S. military commander responsible for Southeast Asia, Special Operations Command Pacific General Jonathan Braga, pressed his bosses in Washington to fight back in the so-called information space, according to three former Pentagon officials.
The commander initially wanted to punch back at Beijing in Southeast Asia. The goal: to ensure the region understood the origin of COVID while promoting skepticism toward what were then still-untested vaccines offered by a country that they said had lied continually since the start of the pandemic.
A spokesperson for Special Operations Command declined to comment.
Health professionals cannot believe the campaign happened:
“I don’t think it’s defensible,” said Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. “I’m extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would do that,” said Lucey, a former military physician who assisted in the response to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said. Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization. Sinovac did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
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Comments
Pharma should pay for their own propaganda, An independent study comparing effectiveness and side effects would interesting.
I’m not seeing the problem here. So unlike the “health professionals” who “cannot believe the campaign happened”, the Pentagon was busy telling South East Asians the truth, and combating enemy propaganda. If only they’d directed the same campaign at us too!
Except they were only ragging on the Chinese vaccines — not ours.
so they told SE asians the truth and lied to us … blackmailed us … yeah no problem there ,,,
No, the Pentagon didn’t lie to us. It didn’t tell us anything.
No, it coerced its members to take the experimental shots. It lied to only them?
No, it FORCED its members to take the experimental shots.
FIFY.
“The goal: to ensure the region understood the origin of COVID while promoting skepticism toward what were then still-untested vaccines offered by a country that they said had lied continually since the start of the pandemic.”
If our military had the funds to warn citizens of foreign countries about these matters, why didn’t they run a similar campaign to warn us of our own country’s lies? Everything in the above quote applies equally to the United States – we were intentionally misled about the origin of the virus (and our complicity in it), unapproved (inadequately tested) vaccines were offered (and in many situations mandated), and our governments (federal and State) lied to us continuously during the pandemic (about literally everything related to the virus, the effectiveness of mandated mitigation efforts, the “safety and effectiveness” of the vaccines, and everything in between).
If only they had run the same campaign to us.
“Another account said, “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”
Someone care to tell me the falsehood in that statement?
Of course Nuthouse wouldn’t see a problem with this. 😈🤡
And that would have been a bad thing?! If only it had had more effect here!
Which as we quickly found out right at the beginning of the crisis, was deep in China’s pocket. This is supposed to be a recommendation?!
I think the problem is that they are using tactics that are essentially propaganda since the state is the one running them. They are also using this propaganda to essentially fund corporate wars against foreign entities….at best, that’s crony capitalism on an international level. They are also stopping to the same tactics that our own government decries form these propaganda factories that rely on such methods to deceive their citizens.
*stooping
The Chinese vaccines were half as effective.
It’s no secret the US military runs pay-op campaigns although far less extensively and effectively than our enemies. As long as they aren’t targeting American citizens it’s is in their authority to do so. As far as the objective of this campaign I’m not really sure what they were trying to accomplish. Possibly to push the US made vaccines ? I don’t know that’s kind of the point though isn’t it.
“COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!”
We already knew that, we needed the Pentagon to waste money to tell us?
“The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said.”
No, no. They didn’t need any help with that. Did just fine undermining themselves all on their own.
“A Reuters investigation…”
Isn’t Reuters UK-based, owned by Canadian Thompson-Reuters? Glad to see US Media on the job here, keeping us informed about what the US Gov is doing.
Oh, who am I kidding. Regime media’s job is managing us, not informing us.
“Regime media’s job is managing us, not informing us.”
That’s a keeper.
They should have expanded the campaign domestically.
So, our Pentagon was whoring itself outside our country on behalf of Pfizer, or trying to get people in one of our territories killed by discrediting the Chinese and their vaccine, or both?
Does this count as friendly fire?
What if they get the great idea to send off our troops to murder people over a war our own government provoked? Oh….