this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
660 points (97.6% liked)

News

23320 readers
3187 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.

The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.

Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (1 children)
  1. The antivaxxers were complaining a conspiracy when this whole time they were the conspiracy.
  2. This whole time antivax kept getting blamed on Russian troll farms, when the troll farms were Western all along. Golden.
[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (4 children)

This whole time antivax kept getting blamed on Russian troll farms, when the troll farms were Western all along. Golden.

Just because the US was doing it, doesn't mean Russia wasn't also doing it.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Right because that changes the ethics of us doing it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Not what I said.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I don't discount the possibility. That being said, mentioning every possibility messes up the joke potential.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Nobody gives a fuck if Russia was doing it or not. That's useless whataboutism.

This is about the effects a disinfo campaign has on how the world perceives America and whether they're worth trusting anymore.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nobody gives a fuck if Russia was doing it or not. That’s useless whataboutism.

The person I was directly replying to said this:

This whole time antivax kept getting blamed on Russian troll farms, when the troll farms were Western all along. Golden.

So they seem to care. Send your whataboutism comment their way.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Tell me you don't understand whataboutism without telling me you don't understand whataboutism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Wrong, this is about all the excess lives lost due to misinformation and the moral culpability of those responsible, not your country's PR image. Russia getting Americans killed through anti-vax propaganda and the US getting Filipinos and others killed through anti-vax propaganda. Both are responsible for their actions. The US has proved untrustworthy long before this incident anyway.