China has stepped up a campaign to shift blame for the coronavirus pandemic by using fake social media accounts to promote conspiracy theories about the source of the virus, the State Department said, as Beijing increasingly adopts Russian-style disinformation techniques.
Analysts with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center have found evidence of a campaign linked to the ruling Communist Party in which accounts run by Chinese ambassadors and other Foreign Ministry officials gained hundreds of new followers a day. Many were newly created accounts that the U.S. suspects are part of an automated bot network.
The evidence points to "an artificial network to follow and amplify messages from Chinese diplomats and Foreign Ministry officials,” Lea Gabrielle, coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, told reporters on Friday. She said the campaign was part of an effort "to make the world see China as the global leader in the response rather than the source of the pandemic.”