Tag: Rumors and Misinformation

Meta’s ‘Biggest Single Takedown’ Removes Chinese Influence Campaign

Media Library

On Feb. 27, an article claiming that the United States was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream underwater pipelines in the Baltic Sea was published on the Substack and Blogspot blogging platforms. Within 24 hours, the article — and other versions of it — had been posted to more websites, including Reddit, Medium, Tumblr, Facebook and YouTube. Translations of the article in Greek, German, Russian, Italian and Turkish also began appearing online. The posts were part of a Chinese influence campaign that stands out as the largest such operation…

Seafood Is Safe After Fukushima Discharge, But Some Won’t Eat It

Media Library

Seafood is having a bad week in East Asia, which is bad news for a region where it’s a major part of the diet. Experts say Japan’s discharge into the ocean of treated radioactive wastewater from the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant, which began on Thursday, does not and will not pose health risks to people who eat seafood. But even though the scientific evidence bears that out, not everyone is convinced. On Thursday, the Chinese government widened a ban on seafood imports to include all of Japan instead of…

The People Onscreen Are Fake. The Disinformation Is Real.

Chin@Strategy

Although the usage of deepfakes in the recently discovered pro-China disinformation campaign was ham handed, it opens a new chapter in information warfare. In recent weeks, another video using similar A.I. technology was uncovered online, showing fictitious people who described themselves as Americans, promoting support for the government of Burkina Faso, which faces scrutiny for links to Russia. A.I. software, which can easily be purchased online, can create “videos in a matter of minutes and subscriptions start at just a few dollars a month,” Mr. Stubbs said. “That makes it…

As Deepfakes Flourish, Countries Struggle With Response

Chin@Strategy

Digital rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation are pushing legislators to relinquish deepfake policing to tech companies, or to use an existing legal framework that addresses issues such as fraud, copyright infringement, obscenity and defamation. “That’s the best remedy against harms, rather than the governmental interference, which in its implementation is almost always going to capture material that is not harmful, that chills people from legitimate, productive speech,” said David Greene, a civil liberties lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Several months ago, Google began prohibiting people from…

Musk’s Ties to China Could Create Headaches for Twitter

Chin@Strategy

SAN FRANCISCO — When Elon Musk opened a Tesla factory in Shanghai in 2019, the Chinese government welcomed him with billions of dollars’ worth of cheap land, loans, tax breaks and subsidies. “I really think China is the future,” Mr. Musk cheered. Tesla’s road since then has been lucrative, with a quarter of the company’s revenue in 2021 coming from China, but not without problems. The firm faced a consumer and regulatory revolt in China last year over manufacturing flaws. With his deal to take over Twitter, Mr. Musk’s ties…

China’s Echoes of Russia’s Alternate Reality Intensify Around the World

Chin@Strategy

When Twitter put up a warning message atop a Russian government post denying civilian killings in Bucha, Ukraine, last week, China’s state media rushed to its defense. “On Twitter @mfa_russia’s statement on #Bucha got censored,” wrote Frontline, a Twitter account associated with China’s official English-language broadcaster, CGTN. In a Chinese Communist Party newspaper, an article declared that Russians had offered definitive evidence to prove that the lurid photos of bodies in the streets of Bucha, a suburb of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, were a hoax. A party television station in Shanghai…

Biden Officials Contend With Bioweapons Propaganda From Russia and China

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — One of Russia’s most incendiary disinformation campaigns ramped up days ago, when its defense and foreign ministries issued statements falsely claiming that the Pentagon was financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine. Then Chinese diplomats and state media organizations repeated the conspiracy theory at news conferences in Beijing, in articles and on official social media accounts. Now, the Biden White House has taken the extraordinary step of calling out both countries on their coordinated propaganda campaign and saying they might be providing cover for a potential biological or chemical…

How China Embraces Russian Propaganda and Its Version of the War

Chin@Strategy

Hours after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the Chinese Communist Party tabloid, Global Times, posted a video saying that a large number of Ukrainian soldiers had laid down their arms. Its source: the Russian state-controlled television network, RT. Two days later, China’s state broadcaster Central Television Station (CCTV) flashed a breaking news alert, quoting Russia’s parliamentary speaker, that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had fled Kyiv. CCTV then created a related hashtag on the Twitter-like platform Weibo that was viewed 510 million times and used by 163 media outlets…

Rejecting Covid-19 Inquiry, China Peddles Conspiracy Theories Blaming US

Chin@Strategy

Wary of independent scrutiny, Beijing has tightly controlled efforts by the World Health Organization to investigate the origin of the outbreak, and it rejected the health agency’s recent call for a second phase of an inquiry that would look more closely at the lab theory. China has been ramping up its disinformation campaign ahead of the results of an investigation by American intelligence agencies, ordered by President Biden. The agencies delivered their report on the origin of the pandemic to the president on Tuesday but have not yet concluded whether…