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In 2020 and 2021, a secret Pentagon program deployed fake social media accounts to sow distrust among people in Southeast Asian countries, particularly the Philippines, around China’s Sinovac vaccination for COVID-19. Clusters of accounts identified as having ties to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) made posts with the hashtag #ChinaAngVirus – or “China is the virus” in Tagalog suggested that the coronavirus is real, but China’s vaccinations were not to be trusted.
Posts in Arabic and Russian also targeted audiences in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Dr. Nina Castillo-Carandang, a former adviser to the World Health Organization and Philippines government said “Why did you do it when people were dying? We were desperate”
We’re joined by Chris Bing, an investigative reporter with Reuters who worked on the June 14th article.
Read the full article here: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/ Read the Stanford Internet Observatory’s “Unheard Voice” report mentioned in our conversation: https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/sio-aug-22-takedowns
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About the Author
Rachel Hu is a journalist with “BreakThrough News,” a new independent media project, where she hosts the podcast “It’s Not You, It’s Capitalism.”
She is also a host on WBAI 99.5FM in NYC and has been an anti-war and anti-racist activist with the ANSWER Coalition for the last decade.
Rachel can be reached at: rachel@wbai.org.
Chris Garaffa has been an anti-imperialist and social justice organizer since joining the movement against the Iraq war in 2003.
Chris is a weekly guest on Sputnik Radio’s “By Any Means Necessary,” and co-hosts the podcast “The Reboot,” focusing on the intersection between technology and human rights.
Chris can be reached at: chris.garaffa@gmail.com.
This article pretty much outs CAM as a tool of the Pentagon. Just like Chomsky, on the surface anti-imperialist; regurgitating anti-Pentagon narratives that things that everyone already knows (to garner trust), then inserting subtle Pentagon propaganda. Busted.
I put more blame for this campaign on the Trump administration who started this campaign and Trump appointees may have been involved. The Biden administration did not terminate this program until mid 2021 but perhaps they were not aware of it in January 2021 when they officially set foot in the White House.