"They threaten public safety" with "potentially catastrophic consequences" ... US officials estimate that thousands of Russian-linked accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are spreading anti-American misinformation about the new coronavirus that has appeared in China.
This campaign of disinformation and the spread of conspiracy theories started a month ago, at a time when the epidemic had only killed a few people in China. For many experts, this Russian campaign recalls the KGB's attempts to make people believe, during the Cold War, that HIV was an invention of American scientists.
"Underground and pernicious campaigns"
"The aim of Russia is to sow discord and weaken the institutions of the United States and its alliances from the inside, including through underground and pernicious campaigns," said Philip Reeker, undersecretary of State responsible for Europe and Eurasia. "By spreading disinformation about the coronavirus, malicious Russian actors are once again choosing to threaten public safety at the expense of the overall response" to the epidemic, he added.
Russia has denied carrying out a disinformation campaign on the coronavirus. "This is a deliberately false story," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, quoted by the TASS public agency.
Virus created in the United States, Bill Gates…
US diplomats responsible for combating Russian disinformation say that accounts in the names of fictitious people reproduce Russian lines of attack, not only in English but also in French, Spanish, Italian and German.
Spread theories include the idea that the virus was created by the United States to "wage an economic war on China", that it is a biological weapon invented by the CIA, or that it is part of a Western strategy of “anti-China messages”. Tweets also falsely accuse Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose foundation has invested billions of dollars in international health programs.
"This is typical of the Russian doctrine of informational confrontation"
The thousands of accounts involved were monitored for interfering in various crises around the world, from the war in Syria to the protests in Chile and France with the yellow vests. They post "almost identical" messages on the coronavirus, according to a report prepared for the Global Engagement Center of the State Department, the cell against foreign disinformation campaigns.
Unlike other subjects where the activity generally lasts three days, these accounts have been active for a month, according to American officials, a sign of the importance attached to the case by the Russians. "This is typical of the Russian doctrine of information confrontation," said an official. "The global number of coronavirus cases has not reached its peak, so the Russian strategy is to exploit the information environment in a very inexpensive but very effective way, in order to sow discord between China and us, or for economic reasons ”.
Accounts "coordinated" with each other
The State Department coincides with the start of the Internet campaign on January 20, when Russian state-controlled media began to broadcast anti-Western articles and interviews on the origins of the epidemic, including RT and Sputnik . Account operators started the next day. "It is unlikely to be a coincidence," said an official. "When the Russian media started to come out with these theories, the Russian accounts really started to promote them worldwide."
“These thousands of accounts work together with each other, on a daily basis, with identical phrases, tone and rhythm. We can all link them quite easily to RT, Sputnik and other media linked to Russia. ” "They are not robots, they are real people behind a keyboard," added the official. "We can thus fully see their ecosystem of disinformation at work, including state televisions, websites close to them and thousands of false identities on the Internet which, all, push the same themes", also commented Lea Gabrielle, who heads the Global Engagement Center.
Washington considers that Russian disinformation is hampering the health response to the virus, particularly in Africa and Asia. "These operators seem to have carte blanche to sow discord," said a State Department official, saying that the Russian trolls were autonomous and did not necessarily act on explicit orders. “There is no need for a particular theme to be decided at the highest level. They have the independent ability to operate in this space to inflict the damage they want, with potentially catastrophic consequences. ”
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