Facebook: Fake scientist was used to spread anti-US propaganda

A disinformation network with ties to China used hundreds of fake social media accounts — including one belonging to a fictitious Swiss biologist — to spread an unfounded claim that the U.S. pressured scientists to blame China for the coronavirus, Facebook said Wednesday.

The company based in Menlo Park, California, did not directly attribute the network to the Chinese government. But it noted employees of Chinese state-run companies, and the country’s staterun media, worked to amplify the misleading claims, which were soon the subject of news headlines in China.

“In effect it worked like an online hall of mirrors, endlessly reflecting the original fake persona and its anti-US disinformation,” according to Ben Nimmo, who leads investigations into disinformation at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

The operation began in July, when a Facebook account was created in the name of Wilson Edwards, a self-professed Swiss biologist. That same day, the account user claimed, without evidence, that U.S. officials were using “enormous pressure and even intimidation” to get scientists to back calls for renewed investigations into the origin of the virus.

Within hours, hundreds of other accounts — some of which were created only that day — began liking, posting or linking to the post. Many of the accounts were later found to be fake, with some of the users posing as westerners and others using likely fabricated profile photos.

Facebook said it found links between the accounts and a tech firm based in Chengdu, China, as well as to overseas employees of Chinese infrastructure companies.

Within a week of the initial post, large media outlets in China were reporting on the claims of U.S. intimidation as if they had been made by a real scientist.

The operation was exposed when Swiss authorities announced in August that they had no record of any biologist with Edwards’ name. “If you exist, we would like to meet you!” the Swiss embassy in Beijing tweeted.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said in the past that the country’s government does not employ trickery on social media.

Efforts to contact the companies cited in the report weren’t immediately successful on Wednesday.