The covert effort began under Trump and continued into Biden’s presidency, Reuters found. Health experts say it endangered lives for possible geopolitical gain.

  • @[email protected]
    3•5 months ago

    While I can certainly believe the US would do this, the article is very light on evidence: a “senior official” is their source. Yes the bot accounts are evidence of a campaign, but not of who was behind them.

    It also doesn’t say whether studies showed the efficacy of the Sinovac vaccine. All reports at the time (which could definitely be the result of propaganda) said it was nowhere near as effective as the big 2 (later 3) western vaccines. Was/is Sinovac comparable to the western vaccines?

    Then they chuck in Osama Bin Laden and the South China sea for some reason. Yes, the CIA stealing blood samples from Polio Vaccine recipients was oafish, but those were real vaccines. There was no propaganda comparison.

    I believe there is some truth to this story, I just expect a better level of investigative journalism from Reuters. And not a bunch of unrelated guff because it was the biggest vaccine story before 2019.

    • MHLoppyOP
      5•5 months ago

      While I can certainly believe the US would do this, the article is very light on evidence: a “senior official” is their source.

      The article says “In uncovering the secret U.S. military operation, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers. Reporters also reviewed Facebook, X and Instagram posts, technical data and documents about a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military. Some were active for more than five years.” which seems like it’s not just hinging everything on one person. I don’t think naming the military / government sources would be reasonable here, so I’m not sure what more burden of proof you’re after that they could actually provide.

      It also doesn’t say whether studies showed the efficacy of the Sinovac vaccine. All reports at the time (which could definitely be the result of propaganda) said it was nowhere near as effective as the big 2 (later 3) western vaccines. Was/is Sinovac comparable to the western vaccines?

      Also in the article: “Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization.”, so no, not as effective, but:

      • “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.”
      • "“COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog.
      • “Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.””
      • “Although the Chinese vaccines were still months from release, controversy roiled the Muslim world over whether the vaccines contained pork gelatin and could be considered “haram,” or forbidden under Islamic law. Sinovac has said that the vaccine was “ manufactured free of porcine materials.” Many Islamic religious authorities maintained that even if the vaccines did contain pork gelatin, they were still permissible since the treatments were being used to save human life. The Pentagon campaign sought to intensify fears about injecting a pig derivative.”

      These quotes I’ve copied are not simply campaigns of “Sinovac is less effective”.

      Then they chuck in Osama Bin Laden and the South China sea for some reason. Yes, the CIA stealing blood samples from Polio Vaccine recipients was oafish, but those were real vaccines. There was no propaganda comparison.

      In context, what’s there about Osama bin Laden feels fair to me. It’s saying don’t get… whatever this is (psyops?) and healthcare mixed up because it can damage the latter (i.e., “here’s one time where the two weren’t separated and it caused healthcare problems as a consequence”). It’s not about whether the hepatitis vaccination thing was a propaganda effort or not, or if the vaccines themselves were real or not – it still lead to worse health outcomes because people became distrustful as a result of it.

      The South China Sea part also seems not unreasonable in context. (paraphrased) “there was some existing distrust among Filipinos due to past actions by China, such as <recent action>” seems… on topic to say in a discussion about public trust?

      • @[email protected]
        2•5 months ago

        As I said, I can believe this happened. So, I’m not going to fight hard against this story. I expect it to turn out to be mostly true. That said, stuff like this:

        In uncovering the secret U.S. military operation, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers.

        … means absolutely nothing. That can be a mix of some 80 year old retired official from any government department who has no authority or idea about the topic. There are literally Millions of contractors, they could have worked for any branch of the military. Caterers are military contractors. I’m not even sure there is a qualification for “social media analyst” and an academic researcher is anyone with a degree doing study. It sounds impressive, but says absolutely nothing.

        Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization.

        That also says nothing new, really. Found by who? The people doing propaganda? How much less effective? Is it always less effective? It was always approved by the WHO. That’s also not new information.

        My problem isn’t with the story. It’s with the lack of verifiable facts, sources and proof a statement this huge demands. It uses a lot of words to pad out and disguise the simple fact that at the end of the day, they have one unnamed “senior official” and some bot accounts. I’d be just as ready to believe those were being run by some local opposition party who wanted western vaccines. Edward Snowden was an unnamed source for a hot minute, too. So that alone isn’t a killer of truth, but even when he was unnamed, the Guardian had piles of hard evidence to back up the 2012 Pentagon stories.

        This article has a tabloid feel. I don’t like it. Reuters used to be better than this.

        • MHLoppyOP
          1•5 months ago

          but even when he was unnamed, the Guardian had piles of hard evidence to back up the 2012 Pentagon stories.

          I guess to me, the difference between publishing some documents [1][2] or slides [3] as per your example with The Guardian isn’t that different (again, for me) as implicitly saying “the source(s) is/are legit” if whoever’s publishing the information has a track record of being trustworthy regarding factuality since I can’t necessarily verify the authenticity of that evidence anyway.