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#Disinformation
Pro-China party twists official statistics in a bid to blame economic suffering on pro-democracy movement

The pro-China political party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), created a new Facebook post entitled “How badly has black-clad violence battered Hong Kong in past one year?”. Along with the post, a set of statistics concerning the economic, crime, and unemployment statuses of Hong Kong were duly shared, with the intent to highlight the unspoken impact of anti-ELAB protest activities and clashes throughout 2019. Factwire, however, looked into these numbers, and most of which are performance data from the first 4 months of 2020, during the height of Hong Kong’s coronavirus outbreak. It is an apparent disinformation campaign attempting to mislead citizens by summing up causes of complicated economic adversities on a single factor.

Looking at the data, the value of total retail sales was compared between the April’s of this year and last year, while the comparison on travelers was drawn between January 2020 and 2019. The post also mentioned unemployment and underemployment in Hong Kong. After verification, these figures were confirmed as only seasonal adjustments for the period from February to April 2020. When issuing the relevant data, the Tourism Board and the Government both mentioned the impact of epidemic outbreak, and consistently both did not mention anti-ELAB social movement as the cause.

The post also compared the crime figures from January to March this year with the same period last year, with information from the Hong Kong Police Force, in which cases concerning robberies and fraud were said not related to anti-ELAB movement.

Source: Factwire
#Jun16 #DAB #Statistics
#FakeNews #MadeinChina
Fabricated Fearmongering Video of Joshua Wong Talking about National Security Law Appears on Social Media

A minute-long voice video of "Joshua Wong Chi-fung” speaking in an internal meeting was published on a pro-China Facebook group, Silent Majority, on June 25.

In the video, a voice called “Joshua Wong” expressed concerns about the National Security Law and acknowledged receiving sponsorship fund from the US.

This coarsely fabricated video went viral across social media platform on the same day. In the afternoon, Joshua Wong issued a statement for clarification, and sternly made it clear that the video was fabricated, pointing out obvious discrepencies in the video, such as the usage of words and expressions uncommonly used in Hong Kong.

Source: Joshua Wong's Facebook; Stand News

#Jun25 #FailedState #NationalSecurityLaw #RuleofLaw #Disinformation #JoshuaWong
#FakeNews #Disinformation
China Tampers With #WHO Video, Removes a Crucial "If", and Falsely Claims Vaccine Success

Source: Fact Check Lab, Hong Kong

#WuhanPneumonia #CoronavirusPandemic #Covid19Vaccine
#FakeNews #Disinformation
China Tampers With #WHO Video, Removes a Crucial "If", and Falsely Claims Vaccine Success

China's state-run CCTV News posted a video on Sept 24, 2020 to their Chinese-language Facebook page, claiming that WHO had stated that China's COVID-19 vaccine had "proved to be successful" in current clinical trials.

The video was reposted by a number of pro-Beijing Facebook pages, with captions such as "WHO Top Scientist: New Chinese COVID Vaccine Proven to be Effective", "China is Great 👍 For the Good of the World".

However, Factcheck Lab compared the video disseminated by China with the actual proceedings of WHO's press conference, and found that CCTV had cut the statement out of context, carefully removing a paronwith a crucial "if". Moreover, stock footage is played over the resulting audio clip, carefully concealing the distortion of facts upon the edits made by the China-owned news organization.

In the CCTV video [1], the quote from WHO Chief Scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, was modified to apparently claim that China had already created a successful vaccine:

"... very active vaccine development programme and several of their vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of clinical trial so this is also of interest to us so we're following those very closely. Some of their candidates actually proved to be successful in the clinical trials that are going on"

The full quote of Dr. Swaminathan is preserved in the conference transcripts [2] and video [3] of the Sept 21 press conference. The parts edited out by CCTV makes it sound that the above italicized quote was not meant to be an assertive statement on its own:

"We've been engaged in discussions with China for the last several months because, as you know, they also have a very active vaccine development programme and several of their vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of clinical trial so this is also of interest to us so we're following those very closely. <b>We've had very constructive and open discussions with them and they have always been reiterating their commitment to global access if some of their candidates actually prove to be successful in the clinical trials that are going on."

Taken in its entirety, it is clear that Dr Swaminathan's statement was only acknowledging China's promise to share any vaccines that they might develop.

In other words, the edited CCTV video, as well as the reposts made by pro-Beijing pages, had deliberately modified the scientist's statement to make false claims of China's success, and is clearly an intentional attempt to mislead the public.

NOTES:
[1] CCTV News video:
https://www.facebook.com/761870613900500/posts/3972027886218074

[2] Transcript of WHO COVID-19 Virtual Press Conference, 21 September 2020:

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcripts/joint-covid-19-virtual-press-conference---21-september.pdf#page=16

[3] Video of press conference, beginning at Dr. Swaminathan's statement (0:42:44):

https://youtu.be/ia8DElK7SE4?t=2564

Source: FactCheck Lab, Hong Kong #30Sept2020 https://www.factchecklab.org/20200930/

#WuhanPneumonia #CoronavirusPandemic #Covid19Vaccine
#CCPLies #CCTV

=======

[Editor's Note:

As the WHO represents the world's concerted effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, such misleading reports only serves to undermine the organization's credibility and international cooperation. It is all the more despicable that it would come from a state-run media such as China's CCTV; such falsehood is an affront to any journalist's commitment to the pursuit of the truth, and ought to be widely condemned.]

The false video was first reported by Factcheck Lab on Sept 30, 2020.

Their original report in Chinese is attached as follows:

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
China escalating its propaganda strategies, expanding efforts in spreading misinformation and censoring negative news

The latest issue of Newsweek reported over 600 organisations with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are participating in infiltration and polarisation in the US. In May, an official from the US Department of State said that Chinese propaganda strategies have escalated, by amplifying disinformation from Russia to attribute the COVID-19 pandemic to the US. China is expanding its influences by censoring negative comments and spreading positive ones to unite its people, while threatening to take economic and diplomatic actions to other countries, stated Atlantic magazine.

Analysts and officials from the Department of State suggested that, China is imitating the spread and amplifying misinformation from Russia, in order to put US to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. "Beijing is pursuing a comprehensive and coordinated influence campaign to advance its interests and undermine the United States. The CCP is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, military, and information tools to advance its influence", stated Lea Gabrielle, Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. Department of State.

She also mentioned social media accounts associated with the Chinese government, fabricating and spreading disinformation about the pandemic or simply false information. By questioning US subsidised-laboratories from the former USSR, China is spinning away the attention from its own laboratory at Wuhan, while other related accounts sculpting China as a model for others to follow in combating the virus.

China’s spread of disinformation is not limited to social media, but also state-subsidised international media such as China Daily, Global Times, and China Global Television Network (CGTN). The official stated that Beijing aims to propagate the idea that Chinese government is leading the world in fighting the pandemic, while the West is incapable of protecting their citizens or helping other countries.

#COVID19 #CCP #SocialMedia #Propaganda #Censorship #US #Disinformation #LeaGabrielle #ChineseMedia #Newsweek

Source: Apple Daily #Oct28

https://hk.appledaily.com/international/20201028/WTZOFT5YGBDF3I3WAL2YACZFJQ/
Beijing Is Getting Better at Disinformation on Global Social Media

When China-linked networks of social media bots and trolls appeared on the global disinformation scene in 2019, most analysts concluded that their impact and reach were fairly limited, particularly in terms of engagement by real users and relative to more sophisticated actors in this realm, like the Russian regime. As many China watchers anticipated, that assessment now seems to be changing.

Several in-depth investigations published over the past two months by academic researchers, think tanks, news outlets, and cybersecurity companies have shed light on the evolution of disinformation campaigns originating in China. Some offer new insights on campaigns that peaked last spring, while others analyze more recent messaging, tactics, and accounts that have emerged since October 2020.

Source: The Diplomat #Mar30

https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/beijing-is-getting-better-at-disinformation-on-global-social-media/

 #Beijing #Disinformation #Media
#WolfWarrior #Disinformation
Chinese #ForeignMinister tells Germans ‘you know what #genocide looks like’

Source: Sydney Morning Herald #May27

Read more
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#WolfWarrior #Disinformation
Chinese #ForeignMinister tells Germans ‘you know what #genocide looks like’

//It is estimated that 1 million Uighurs have been detained in so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang.

China’s Foreign Minister #WangYi rejected academic research detailing the abuses, including forced labour and forced sterilisations of women.

#Uighur women who have been detained in the camps have detailed systemic rape, abuse and torture. China has refused to allow independent investigators into the camps and denies any abuses are taking place.

“There is no forced labour in China,” Wang said. “There’s no such thing [as] concentration camps in #Xinjiang.”

“And there’s no such thing as genocide - our European friends know what is genocide,” he said, referring to the Holocaust when Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews during World War II.

#Buetikofer, who leads the European Parliament’s China delegation, was one of the politicians sanctioned.

Buetikofer described as reckless Wang’s attempts to use the Holocaust to dismiss claims of crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.

“Wang Yi basically tells us ‘shut up, you shouldn’t talk’.

“The Holocaust should not be used as a diplomatic football for rhetorical gains,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“The fact of the matter is that it has been precisely because of our wretched history that we have built our democracies and European Union on the basis of adherence to human rights and the rule of law. For us it is an historic obligation.

“If this People’s Republic of China had nothing to hide, they would open up and allow a full independent investigation; no amount of aggressive wolf-warrior diplomacy will obscure the fact that they still have not done so,” he said.//

Read the article:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/chinese-foreign-minister-tells-germans-you-know-what-genocide-looks-like-20210526-p57vdy.html

Source: Sydney Morning Herald #May27
#Propaganda #CCPRules
China State Media Enlists Overseas #KOL and University Students to Promote the Chinese Communist Party

//China’s state TV station has been targeting British university campuses and offering students the chance to win thousands of pounds by becoming pro-Beijing social media influencers, The Times can reveal.

#CGTN had its broadcasting licence revokedand was taken off the air in Britain in February after an investigation by Ofcom, the media regulator, found that it was editorially controlled by the #ChineseCommunistParty.

The network has since launched a “#MediaChallengers” campaign to recruit internet influencers and vloggers globally, some of whom will promote China and counter western narratives that damage its image.

Successful applicants can win up to $10,000 and secure part-time or full-time jobs at CGTN, according to promotional documents.

At least six students at the University of Leeds and one at the University of Manchester have signed up to the campaign, The Times has found...

Hannah Bailey, an expert on Chinese digital disinformation at the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “If we have western social media influencers reading out China’s official line on particular issues, then domestic audiences might believe the Chinese Communist Party is admired by international audiences.” She said the CGTN campaign was “part of a broader trend that we’ve seen of China trying to increase its influence among university campuses”.//

Read full article:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-state-tv-channel-cgtn-enlists-uk-student-influencers-dw9v5sbnc

Source: The Times #June12

#Brainwashing #Disinformation
#Cybersecurity #FakeNews
Facebook takes down China-based network spreading false COVID-19 claims

//The parent company of #Facebook and #Instagram said on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, it has taken down more than 600 accounts, pages and groups connected to a Chinese influence operation spreading #COVID19 #disinformation, including an account purporting to be a fictitious Swiss biologist.

The China-based network was one of six #Meta, formerly know as Facebook, removed in November for abusing its platforms, a reminder that bad actors around the world are using social media to promote false information and harass opponents.

The China-based operation came to light after the company was alerted to an account purporting to be a Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards (no such person exists). The account posted claims on Facebook and Twitter in July that the U.S. was pressuring World Health Organization scientists to blame China for the COVID-19 virus. The posts alleging U.S. intimidation soon appeared in Chinese state media stories.//

Image: Stand News
Source: NPR #Dec1
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/01/1060645940/facebook-takes-down-china-based-fake-covid-claims

#FakeIdentity #MadeInChina #CCPControls #CCP #Regime
#Propaganda #CCP
Buying Influence: How China Manipulates
#Facebook and #Twitter

//...a new set of documents reviewed by The New York Times reveals in stark detail how Chinese officials tap private businesses to generate content on demand, draw followers, track critics and provide other services for information campaigns. That operation increasingly plays out on international platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which the Chinese government blocks at home.

The documents, which were part of a request for bids from contractors, offer a rare glimpse into how China’s vast bureaucracy works to spread propaganda and to sculpt opinion on global social media. They were taken offline after The Times contacted the Chinese government about them...

A separate document reviewed by The Times shows that the same local branch of Shanghai police purchased video-making services from a different company in November. The police asked the supplier to provide at least 20 videos a month and to distribute those on domestic and overseas social media. The document referred to the task as original video production that would be used to fight the “battle of public opinion.”

Earlier this year, a New York Times and ProPublica analysis showed howthousands of videos portraying members of the Uyghur ethnic minority living happy and free lives were a key part of an information campaign that Twitter ultimately attributed to the Chinese Communist Party...

Work like what Shanghai Cloud Link pitched is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Local governments and police across China have put out similar requests for services to influence overseas social media, but often in vague terms. Occasionally, specifics are revealed.

In 2017, for instance, the police in Inner Mongolia purchased software that allowed government trolls to post directly to multiple social media sites, inside and outside of China, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

In another case, a contractor had downloaded hundreds of access credentials for Facebook’s public feed, allowing it to collect data about who commented on which posts and when.//

Read the full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/20/technology/china-facebook-twitter-influence-manipulation.htmlb

Source: New York Times #Dec20

#Manipulation #PublicOpinionManagement #SocialMedia #Meta #Disinformation #MadeinChina #CCPRules
#NeverTrustCCP #Disinformation
Report found Beijing's exploitation in search results to shape views of Xinjiang and COVID-19

Source: RFI; #May28

Read more
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#NeverTrustCCP #Disinformation
Report found Beijing's exploitation in search results to shape views of Xinjiang and COVID-19

China’s global campaign to expand the reach of its political positions is said to help it secure a coveted piece of online real estate: first-page search results on Google and other major Western portals.

Content reflecting Beijing’s position on its human-rights record and the origins of Covid-19 now regularly appears among top results on Google, Bing and YouTube, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution and another Washington think tank, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which seeks to study and resist the authoritarian government.

The report found the Chinese state media are "remarkably effective" at influencing the content returned for the term “Xinjiang” across several search types.

“Xinjiang,” which is among the most neutral terms in our data set, regularly returned state-backed content across news searches, with at least one Chinese state-backed news outlet appearing in the top 10 results in 88% of searches (106 out of 120 days searched).

On YouTube, state media appeared among the top 10 results in searches for “Xinjiang” in 98% of searches (118 out of 120 days searched).

Read full report
Winning the web: How Beijing exploits search results to shape views of Xinjiang and COVID-19
https://www.brookings.edu/research/winning-the-web-how-beijing-exploits-search-results-to-shape-views-of-xinjiang-and-covid-19/

Source: RFI; #May28

https://bit.ly/3PMrnvz