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.
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?
Yeah, I just think the resistance to even discussing it is very strange. Not suggesting conspiracy, just good old fashioned human irrationally.