Last Updated on April 10, 2020
China has reportedly “tripled presence on Facebook and Twitter in recent months” as it struggles to control Coronavirus narratives on the internet as fingers have been pointed at them after their response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The world’s second biggest economy has reportedly bought up U.S. ads to promote disinformation campaigns which have been likened to Russia by the Wall Street Journal.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
The efforts include ad purchases on Facebook Inc. FB 0.52% promoting the English-language arms of Chinese state-media outlets, as well as posts there and on Twitter Inc.’s TWTR -0.32% platform that in some cases disparage U.S. efforts to fight the global pandemic, the researchers say.
From mid-February until early March, social-media sites linked to Chinese state media posted more than 3,300 times a day, triple the normal rate, according to Recorded Future, a Somerville, Mass.-based cybersecurity consulting firm. Those outlets were principally active on Facebook and Twitter, the research showed.
China has tripled its presence on Facebook and Twitter in recent months, researchers say, to spread messages that can incite doubt about basic facts and sometimes promote fictitious claims https://t.co/IEZDaL6vfQ
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 10, 2020
The effort to buy up social media ads was in an effort to shape the Western world’s opinion over China’s involvement in the Hong Kong protests which were eclipsed by the coronavirus outbreak.
The deadly Covid-19, which China failed to contain or act transparently, has left a trail of destruction in its wake; tens of thousands have died from the coronavirus as well as paralyzing global economics.
One UK think tank placed the economic damage to G7 countries to be in the vicinity of $7 trillion–and suggested reparations of hundreds of billions of dollars to the UK alone.
Since the end of 2018, China has bought up over 200 social media ads–a third of which have been purchased in the past few months.
Researchers indicated China’s intentions acting in accordance with a form of social consciousness damage control, after the general consensus on the internet points to blaming China for the global pandemic currently placing billions around the world on lockdown.
Several stories have emerged worsening China’s diplomatic image as several countries report faulty PPE to combat the spread of the Covid-19. The White House reported on face masks donated to Beijing from Italy being forcefully sold back as the Mediterranean country struggles to tackle the pandemic.
Last Year, Silicon Valley was reportedly colluding with China in the creation of an extra-legal social credit system as individual freedoms are trounced in order to contain the coronavirus.
