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.
Just because the US was doing it, doesn’t mean Russia wasn’t also doing it.
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.
The person I was directly replying to said this:
So they seem to care. Send your whataboutism comment their way.
Tell me you don’t understand whataboutism without telling me you don’t understand whataboutism.
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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.
I don’t discount the possibility. That being said, mentioning every possibility messes up the joke potential.
Right because that changes the ethics of us doing it?
Not what I said.
ok but we have evidence right in front of our face that the US was doing it
We also have evidence and motive for Russia doing it.
This isn’t a either/or situation.
The US was doing it in the Philippines. Russia was doing it in the US. It’s the circle of life.