The Pentagon ran a clandestine disinformation effort in 2020 aimed at undermining the reputation of China’s COVID vaccine Sinovac.
That eventually transformed into a full-blown anti-vax campaign, a new Reuters investigation claims.
According to the news agency, the US Department of Defense employed some 300 fake accounts on social network X (then known as Twitter) to discredit the Chinese vaccine in the Philippines.
The posts made by those phony accounts urged Filipinos not to trust the Chinese vaccine or as protective measures such as face masks, with one such post reportedly claiming that “COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China.”
Following the Reuters investigation, the accounts in question were removed by X which declared the profiles were part of a bot campaign.
The Pentagon propaganda effort also targeted people in the Middle East and Central Asia, claiming that the Sinovac jab should be considered haram by Muslims because some vaccines are made with pork gelatin.
While this disinformation effort began during Donald Trump’s presidency, it continued during the first months of Joe Biden’s term in the Oval Office, “even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation,” the news agency noted.
“A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the US military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China’s vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details,” Reuters reported.