China is behind the largest known covert propaganda operation ever identified on Facebook and Instagram, according to a new report by security researchers at Meta.
Meta on Tuesday outed the authors of a four-year long influence campaign dubbed “Spamouflage Dragon,” which first appeared in 2019 to spread propaganda about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. Since then, the campaign has focused on spreading disinformation about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, attacking dissidents and critics abroad, criticizing the United States, and attempting to sow division during the 2022 midterm elections.
For years, researchers have speculated that the voluminous Spamouflage Dragon posts were connected to the Chinese government but have been unable to publicly prove a link until now. The link comes courtesy of overlapping content found in both Meta’s report and charges filed against Chinese intelligence operatives back in spring.
I’ve never understood the resistance to discussing the origins of Covid. It’s pretty important for understanding possible future risks. As far as being racist, I don’t get that either. We have to be able to criticize other nations regardless of who they are. I have a lot of respect for what China has done over the last few decades, it doesn’t mean they might not have screwed up and leaked a deadly disease out of a lab.
The reality is that we’ll probably never know for sure what happened because China blocked anyone else from investigating until long after the fact.
The lab leak theory isn’t racist, but lots of racists really love pushing it. And even if it was true, it wouldn’t mean anything. China was doing research on the viral strains they are most vulnerable to and it got out… so what? It was already in the wild. That’s the point of research.
Now if someone had actual proof it was a bioweapon program, that would be worth talking about, but no one does.
You don’t think that a lab leak might suggest a need for more robust standards at such labs? It’s flawed to suggest that there aren’t differing future mitigation implications depending on how Covid started.
As far as racists clinging to certain theories, that doesn’t preclude rational people from talking about them as well. It’s the same kind of reasoning that produces arguments like, “Well, we can’t criticize Israel, because… Nazis!”
And, frankly, I have always found the idea that Covid started in a wet market much more racially charged than the idea of a lab leak.
The reasoning doesn’t make sense to me on multiple levels.
Even if it was a protocol failure, they’d have fixed it afterwards.
The obsession with the theory with no proof is just conspiracy thinking at best, for what? They’re fucking genociding millions of people as it is, why is a potential accident the issue at hand?
That’s what doesn’t make sense to me.
We have proof of a genocide, but the viral outbreak we’ve known was coming for twenty years is the problem?
Yeah, I just think the resistance to even discussing it is very strange. Not suggesting conspiracy, just good old fashioned human irrationally.
The problem, to me, is that the wet market in Wuhan has been studied for decades as a possible location where a viral outbreak could happen. And china shit it down for a short time but let it reopen. And scientists are just right back to studying this dangerous petri dish.
Edit: Scientists and science journalists have shared this opinion, read good sources.
The possible origins should be discussed. By experts. What kind of discussion are you looking for? I’m not a bioweapons expert. Are you? What possible conclusion can we come to that actual experts might not have considered?
I just see this idea that everyone’s viewpoint is equivalently valid everywhere and it drives me crazy. This is a scientific question. Real experts study this stuff their entire lives. The one guy with a Ph.D. in Microbiology has an opinion that’s worth more than a million random idiots with a keyboard and internet. Maybe instead of coming to our own conclusions, we listen.
Of course. Again, I just don’t understand the weird polarizing effect even bringing it up causes. By your own reasoning there would be almost nothing most of us average people should even talk about. I find that highly questionable as a blanket statement. We can certainly talk about what we think the experts should be considering without making our own conclusions about it.
Edit: Just to clarify, you mentioned bioweapons. I haven’t heard anything to support that. I just wanted to be clear. I’m not promoting any extreme theories or indeed any theory.