The US military used fake social media accounts to spread propaganda designed to discredit China's COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines during the height of the pandemic, according to an explosive report from . The anti-vaccine campaign ran from spring 2020 to mid-2021 and aimed to “counter what (the Pentagon) perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines,” the publication found in its research. The Philippines recorded low vaccination rates throughout 2021, even months after the Chinese Sinovac vaccine arrived in the area, and recorded nearly 50,000 COVID deaths in November of that year.
In an example of US anti-vaccine messaging cited by Reuters, an account in 2020 tweeted: “COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!” The campaign also pushed the narrative that Chinese vaccines were “haram” (or prohibited by Islamic law) due to a pork derivative in their ingredients.
Former military officers who spoke with Reuters He said the Pentagon had propaganda accounts on x, facebook and instagram, and in late 2020 facebook executives warned him that the accounts had been identified and were acting in violation of the platform's policies. However, some of these accounts were ultimately not deleted after the Pentagon said it would stop using them for its anti-vaccine campaign. Reuters notified x about at least 300 accounts it found during its investigation that appeared to be part of the operation. They were determined to be bots and removed.
According Reuters, the campaign was launched after the Chinese government made unfounded claims that the spread of COVID-19 could be traced back to the United States. In a statement to the publication, a Pentagon spokesperson mentioned China's disinformation campaign and said the military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter such malign influence attacks targeting the United States, its allies and partners”.
