China Floods Facebook With Ads Blaming Trump for COVID-19
Chinese state pumps out more propaganda to shift the blame away from coronavirus
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Chinese state media has used Facebook and Instagram to inundate the platforms with undisclosed 'political ads' blaming President Donald Trump for the coronavirus pandemic in an attempt to shift the blame away from China.
Facebook responded to China's underhanded political ad campaign saying it was an “error” that the ads were not classified as political, and is correcting them.
The Chinese media was posting undisclosed political ads in an attempt to cover-up China's role in the coronavirus pandemic while blaming Trump, the Telegraph reported.
The three Chinese state media outlets responsible where Xinhua, China Central Television, and the Global Times, all of which targeted users across the world in English, Chinese, and Arabic.
The ads, reportedly seen by millions, inflate China’s efforts to fight the coronavirus while downplaying the origin of the outbreak.
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Moreover, the article depicts President Trump as 'racist' and 'misguided,' while suggesting the virus may have originated in the United States.
One ad states:
"[China] has taken stringent and forceful measures, and turned the tide on coronavirus."
Another one also states:
"Trump’s disruption to China has severe consequences.”
The Global Times ad reads:
“Trump administration and its supporters don’t believe the U.S.’s ordeal is the result of erroneous policy. This will impede the U.S. from taking stronger and harsher measures to correct their mistakes."
The ads ran without a political disclaimer, allowing them to hide information about who the ads were targeting and where they originated from.
Some of the ads focused on Trump’s use of the term “Chinese virus."
Fox News Reporter Embarrasses Susan Rice After Rice Tried To Trash Trump: “Maybe he should just blame it on a video and call it a day”
— Neon Nettle (@NeonNettle) March 20, 2020
READ MORE: https://t.co/cy1RBgum8Y
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A spokesperson for Facebook said many of the ads are running in countries where Facebook requires no disclosure, which makes it hard to determine how much more propaganda went unnoticed.
According to NewPushed, some of the state-owned Chinese news organizations were using Facebook ads to attack the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, the Telegraph reported last year.
Twitter also banned ads by state-run news outlets after it came under fire for allowing ads that denied China’s repression of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
Last month, spokesman for communist China’s Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, suggested saying the virus came from the Us military.
Lijian falsely claimed on Twitter last month:
“When did patient zero begin in the US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"
In March, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Chian of launching false propaganda campaigns accusing the U.S. Military of planting the deadly coronavirus in their country.
Pompeo outlined China's reluctance to work with the US on combatting the virus.
“We’ve wanted to work with the Chinese Communist Party throughout this crisis – this crisis that began in Wuhan, China,” Pompeo said.
“We tried – you’ll remember – from the opening days to get our scientists, our experts on the ground there so that we could begin to assist in the global response to what began there in China, but we weren’t able to do that. The Chinese Communist Party wouldn’t permit that to happen.”
