U.S. Accuses China of Stepping Up Virus Disinformation Push
- State Department sees use of bot networks backing Beijing
- Twitter casts doubt on U.S. claims after initial analysis
Chinese paramilitary police guard the entrance to the Forbidden City as it re-opened to limited visitors in Beijing on May 1.
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China has stepped up a campaign to shift blame for the coronavirus pandemic by using fake social media accounts to promote conspiracy theories about the source of the virus, the State Department said, as Beijing increasingly adopts Russian-style disinformation techniques.
Analysts with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center have found evidence of a campaign linked to the ruling Communist Party in which accounts run by Chinese ambassadors and other Foreign Ministry officials gained hundreds of new followers a day. Many were newly created accounts that the U.S. suspects are part of an automated bot network.