THE US State Department said Friday that they have uncovered evidence that the Chinese government is using social media bots to spread disinformation about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Global Engagement Center (GEC), which is a department within the State Department whose mission is to detect foreign disinformation, has discovered that Chinese embassies and diplomats have been using thousands of fake social media accounts on Twitter to spread their messages, which are aimed at shifting the blame for the pandemic away from China.
“The GEC has uncovered a new network of inauthentic Twitter accounts which we assess were created with the intent to amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation,” Lea Gabrielle, the GEC’s Coordinator, said during a press conference on Friday, according to a report by The Epoch Times. “It’s our assessment that this network could be deployed to allow the Chinese Communist Party to rapidly amplify and spread messages around the world, skewing the conversation to its benefit.”
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