this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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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.

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[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 124 points 5 months ago (2 children)

How the fuck does anyone think its a good idea to keep people from vaccinating? They realise the virus just keeps spreading globally if any one country keeps having it in circulation? Just bizarre. Just like Russia.

[–] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 77 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It started while Trump was trying to act like the pandemic was a hoax. So I'm not that surprised. Article also says Biden shut it down in spring of 2021 which wasn't long after he was sworn in.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (7 children)

Except the article also notes that Twitter didn't remove the accounts and their posts until Reuters told them about it, presumably because the Department of Defense never told Twitter or anyone else about this program.

Biden should have informed the public about this bad behavior, publicly condemned it, and publicly held the people behind it accountable. It shouldn't have taken investigative journalists digging quotes out of nameless sources to bring this to light if the administration were serious about preventing the spread of misinformation and not just trying to sweep an obviously dumb idea under the rug before it could blow up in their faces.

e; also, the article concludes

The Pentagon’s audit concluded that the military’s primary contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to hide the origin of the fake accounts, said a person with direct knowledge of the review. The review also found that military leaders didn’t maintain enough control over its psyop contractors, the person said.

A spokesperson for General Dynamics IT declined to comment.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”

And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.

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[–] Protoknuckles@lemmy.world 85 points 5 months ago

What the fuck!? Come on!!!

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 81 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (7 children)

I don't care if they are considered our enemies; that's fucked up. Our government's grievances are of their government. Not the people. Not the culture. Not the land itself. Doing shit that harms the average person is incredibly vile.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 45 points 5 months ago

It's fucked up when we do it, it's fucked up when Russia does it, it's fucked up when China does it. This is terrible.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 40 points 5 months ago

Worse, this was targeted in part against the people of the Philippines, an ally.

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[–] psivchaz@reddthat.com 67 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This has to be terrible news for conspiracy theorists. Our government got caught doing something shady overseas but it was encouraging other people to NOT vaccinate, which is the thing the conspiracy theorists thought our government wanted everyone to do.

I'm legitimately interested to see how/if Fox or OAN report on this. It should be entertaining.

[–] EatATaco@lemm.ee 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't matter to conspiracy theorist because they can just say this is a false flag to make them look crazy. When the facts don't matter, it's easy to make any fact be further confirmation of your point.

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[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 63 points 5 months ago (15 children)

It undermines the entire world including the US. Fucking morons.

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[–] Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 53 points 5 months ago (20 children)

As an American, I am ashamed that my country's government does acts of pure evil like this. I'm sorry rest of the world, I wish my voice was more than but a whisper while on a St Patrick's Day bar crawl in Boston.

In my honest opinion whoever proposed this, approved this, and ultimately executed this should be persecuted for something akin to shouting fire leading to a stampede and deaths.

Actions like this are exactly why we probably shouldn't have a completely opaque society.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 21 points 5 months ago (2 children)

In my honest opinion whoever proposed this, approved this, and ultimately executed this should be persecuted for something akin to shouting fire leading to a stampede and deaths.

That would be Donald J. Trump. It's in the article.

We knew he was bad at managing the pandemic and we know he was bad at foreign policy. This was a two for the price of one deal.

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[–] Ulrich_the_Old@lemmy.ca 52 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Yeah and trump ran a very public anti-vax campaign in the USA.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Trumps supporters were anti vaccine, but surprisingly he was pro vaccine

[–] Red_October@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago (6 children)

He was also pro injecting yourself with bleach.

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[–] djsoren19@yiffit.net 48 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wonderful to see our country is continuing our tradition of nonsensical psy-ops designed to exploit a tragedy and inflict as much harm as possible. I'm glad there's no consequences for a nation abusing their power in such an egregious manner.

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[–] MataVatnik@lemmy.world 45 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I always wanted the US to counter China and Russian troll accounts, but not like this.

[–] null@slrpnk.net 41 points 5 months ago (2 children)

So basically the people claiming that vaccines are dangerous and part of a secret government scheme to control us were actually the victims of a secret government scheme to convince us that vaccines are dangerous.

[–] Crikeste@lemm.ee 12 points 5 months ago

They are the thing they despise the most: Sheep.

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[–] captainjaneway@lemmy.world 40 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If we spent half the energy on improving our lives that we spend on fucking people over, we'd have a utopia by now. Or at least less lead in our pipes.

America is a global superpower which - apparently - spends some of its most secretive efforts on petty lashbacks to Chinese propaganda. And I'll be damned if our most secretive efforts don't also end up costing us the most taxes (relative to their effective output). I know that Twitter opens its firehouse of data to government programs to support social media analysis. I'm sure Google and Meta do as well. They are aiding these psychological campaigns.

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[–] mlg@lemmy.world 33 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Maybe the real conspiracies were the ones the DoD made along the way lmao.

Seriously though, I still remember people clowning on sinovac as if having access to a 60% efficacy vaccine was worse than having none at all because hurrrr durrr china copy cat manufacturing.

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[–] Avialle@lemmy.world 30 points 5 months ago

Doesn't matter to whom they did it. This BS spreads around the world, making people hate each other. What a fucked up world we live in.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Really sounds like the CIA is a thing we don't need.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 28 points 5 months ago

This is ridiculous. Fucking spooks

[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 27 points 5 months ago

The Philippines is a major US ally in the region, hopefully they raise a stink about this. Nothing changes pentagon policy quicker than a potential loss of military strength.

[–] schizoidman@lemmy.ml 27 points 5 months ago (2 children)

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal

Henry Kissinger

[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 27 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Also Kissinger: let's do even more of that, and drop bombs on random grid squares just to be a dick

[–] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Can we start adding war criminal next to war criminal Henry Kissinger's name like we do with convicted rapist Brock Turner?

[–] Zehzin@lemmy.world 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Honestly, war criminal doesn't even cut it. Dude is a class of piece of shit on his own. One of the largest shitstains on the toilet bowl of history

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[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 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.
[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 37 points 5 months ago (11 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.

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[–] secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

this is exactly why i use linux

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[–] bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 5 months ago

it‘s okay. They’re just protecting our values, or morals, or culture, or something. Ah, I‘m sorry, it‘s markets.

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 13 points 5 months ago

Well that seems to have backfired.

Excuse me, I seem to have facepalmed my eyeballs into the next room. Fuck.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Nothing shocking, nothing surprising.

We here in South Africa had our turn with US psyop shitfuckery last year.

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[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Goddammit Pentagon. That's not how diseases work.

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[–] Lightrider@sh.itjust.works 11 points 5 months ago

Government funded covidiots... Jesus fucking Christ

[–] DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works 11 points 5 months ago
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