A medical worker prepares a dose of Sinopharm vaccine at a vaccination facility in Beijing on Jan. 15, 2021. As disinformation and misinformation become major tools of global conflict, democracies need to decide when and how they should influence populations abroad. Influence campaigns are undoubtedly necessary, but how to conduct them according to democratic values is less obvious.
Reuters journalists Chris Bing and Joel Schectman reported June 14 that the Defense Department operation was targeted at the Philippines and “aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other lifesaving aid that was being supplied by China.” They found the Pentagon, through a contractor, General Dynamics IT, created some 300 phony social media accounts.
When the pandemic began, China blamed it on the United States. Military officials at Central Command, based at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base, decided to respond with a social media campaign aimed at China. The phony postings sought to raise doubts about the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine, released in early 2021, which had a lower efficacy than the U.S.-made mRNA vaccines, but was still a valuable tool to fight the pandemic and.
The Pentagon seriously blundered by spreading disinformation that could directly harm individuals — if they shunned masks, vaccines and other tools, they were more vulnerable to the virus. Reuters reports that at least six State Department officials raised objections to the campaign, and quoted one of them as saying, “We’re stooping lower than the Chinese and we should not be doing that.”in 2022.
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