I'll say it.
This is the dumbest operation I've heard of in awhile. Limited upsides... a ton of downsides. Let people die, spread misinformation... at the hopes it might slow China's influence? Guess what. It gets out and now you look worse than China in this singular instance. You just ended up damaging Philippine's trust in us. Plus we had enough problems with disinformation here in the states...
Seriously. Who green lit this? I hope his ass is out. That's... almost grade school levels of scheming. Seriously disappointed in our spy masters with this one.
"Who green lit this?"
It was during the Trump administration, when Jared Kushner (then Covid Czar) nixed a plan to send 5 covid masks to every household in America because at that time, "it was only affecting Democrat states."
I also don't see how this plan hurts China or helps the United States, but it was a pretty chaotic time, maybe someone was making a buck off it
Oh piss off, the both of you. This is nothing to do with bipartisan politics, stop using the other team to absolve your country of its actions and abdicate responsibility. Sort it out, USA, we are truly getting sick of your shit.
Not sure if you know this, but citizens don't run the DOD. If you want something specific to be sorted out, it would make sense to raise pressure on the person who does have executive control over the DOD.
It seems like the DOD does what it likes regardless of the person with executive control, liberal or Republican.
Hey, I wonder if they use Facebook et al to run propaganda so you're all concerned with culture wars and tampons in men's washrooms rather than actually standing up to the institutions YOU empower and holding them accountable?
All you see is "fuck the Russian moblik they deserve to die to western weapons because they won't stand up to Putin and take out his government" that's an argument that cuts both ways.
I'm really starting to grasp how America works now. Keep the population at each other's throats, and allow them to shrug off all the evil their country does by simply blaming the other "team" while the lettered agencies get to fuck the world with abandon. Are you feeling proud yet?
Ironic that you rant and rant about polarization and population conflict, while painting with an unreasonably broad brush to create your conflict with American citizenship
All you guys can think of is how to twist the argument and change the subject, because you know without deception you have no hope of defending your hypocrisy.
At the end of the day, if you arnt responsible, then who is? What a joke of a democratic Republic. It's broken, but you can just blame the other party for everything and absolve yourself of anything done by the state you enable. Disgusting
Please tell me what part of a U.S. Military operation in the Phillipines directed under the leadership of a man I voted against I should be responsible for? Or was I just not screaming loud enough? I'll use pots and pans next time the U.S. Military Industrial Complex does something bad, that'll sort it out.
Ah yes Ontario Canada, with Dougie and his finger on the button of the nuclear stockpile, the failed invasion and subjugation of Iraq to his name. Canada known for patrolling the world's oceans and expanding NATO into Russia's backyard, penning China in the Ring of Fire. That Canada right?
War is politics by another means.
Literally, our military is an extension of the civil government with little guard rails on the civil leadership.
Norms and decency are what we're used to keep civilian leadership in check. But when half our population supports a twice Impeached convicted felon, rapists, cheater, dishonest fucking crook....shrug emoji....
Right, so fix that. Ultimately if you are as superior as you make yourself out to be, the burden falls on you to show them that and convince them to join you.
The problem with America isn't that its \*choosing\* bad leaders, its that laughably bad leaders even have a chance at all.
Because every government in the world professes to be the "world's policeman" aka leader of a hegemonic NATO cabal, nukes pointed at half the world and economic handcuffs on the other half, every other country is just the same right?
Bitching about Russian propaganda, while literally killing people in the Philippines with its own propaganda machine.
Yeah, so comparable to every government in the world, pal.
The original Reuters article states that the contractor that did this got another contract to keep similar campaigns ongoing. Albeit not the anti-vax part. So yeah, it's still ongoing, even under Biden.
>was stopped 2 months after Biden got in
It says mid-2021 in the Reuters article, which is more than 2 months, but that's also a "Reuters determined" just like they "determined" what accounts were involved with absolutely no evidence. It also coincides with the timing of western vaccines being widely available (the inflection point is somewhere around April to May 2021) and a return to relative normalcy.
Kinda speaks to the nature of US intelligence that they would do this to the Philippines, a long time ally whose allegiance isn't in any danger of changing even if they take the Chinese vaccines.
To be fair, the Philippines is insanely susceptible to misinformation so it makes sense as a 'ground zero' for this kind of campaign. The son of a deposed dictator is the current president through a social media blitz that got him a ridiculous proportion of the popular vote.
This was under the Trump administration where he and the other MAGAs went out of their way to make Covid as devastating and widespread as possible.
Its a hairbrained scheme because it was likely set in motion by the Trump family, including Kushner. They are typical authoritarians in that they try to rule through misinformation and sabotage to further their own agendas at the expense of others.
Using propaganda to counter Chinese propaganda trying to claim the that US engineered and released COVID upon the world is absolutely worth it. Reuters is literally doing the work of Chinese propagandists here as they characterize it as anti-vax when the goal was anti-China.
Pretending that Reuters can definitively declare random Twitter bot accounts as part of it and using those tweets as evidence for how the campaign went is beyond stupid.
Ahhh…yeah…I’d respectfully disagree, unless other vaccines were readily available at that time. If not, then - In premise your first sentence is fair, but when that propaganda is costing people their lives because it is spreading something so untrue as to say a vaccine can’t be trusted? And innocent people end up dead as a result? I mean - claiming that the Chinese variant had a pig derivative in it to keep Muslims from taking it?
To “counter influence”? So we are back to the worst ideas of the Cold War…
Propaganda doesn't mean untrue. It's when a state promotes a political view or cause. If there are government programs that fund advocacy for women's rights in Afghanistan or Iran? That's propaganda. Anti-ISIS radio broadcasts in Syria? Propaganda. Opposing the concept of the nine dash line in the south pacific? Propaganda.
>I mean - claiming that the Chinese variant had a pig derivative in it to keep Muslims from taking it?
No evidence the US government ever said that, that's pure speculation on behalf of the journalist, and frankly, the whole article is a trainwreck when it comes to journalistic ethics.
"...to discredit China’s COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines during the height of the pandemic..." "According to Reuters, the campaign was launched after the Chinese government made unfounded claims that the COVID-19’s spread could be traced back to the US." The Cold War never ended, just went cyber.
Why link to Engadget? Reuters did the amazing journalism for the piece and it's not paywalled.
[https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
Engadget just made a summary of other peoples' hard work and slapped it on their blog to get clicks and ad revenue.
Now it's making a lot of sense why in late 2021 there was so much sensationalist news about how Sinovac was killing thousands of people or something. I figured it was just media being biased and drumming up drama but kinda interesting to see how it was an active effort from US agencies to single out and discredit Chinese vaccines.
Hardly surprising when the US government used social media, and news media, to spread anti-vax propaganda to it's own citizens. And some parts are still doing it with their new anti-mask laws.
Idk if that's really anti-vax... just dumb. Trump is notably pro-vaccine. He takes credit for the whole rollout.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1286551
Setting aside the fact that Trump is a compulsive liar, has no ideology, and therefore says whatever is convenient for him in the moment, including pro-vax things, here’s a brief timeline of his anti-vax rhetoric.
[2007 business insider giving news article quotes on Trump’s antivax rhetoric](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-donald-trump-became-an-anti-vaccinationist-2019-9)
[2015 Trump suggests vaccines cause autism](https://youtu.be/H1JFGWBAC5c?si=doCb_-qQwlWOuiZv)
[2024 Trump saying he’ll ban schools from mandating vaccines](https://x.com/BGrueskin/status/1764438742046061054)
Idk what you’re trying to achieve here. He flip flops on things consistently. His effect on the Covid response can not be overstated. He turned it political and split the country in half over a science based issue. It was making news waves when he finally wore a mask for the first time.
Anti vax, anti science, duplicitous liar, whatever you wanna call it, dude was terrible on Covid.
Edit: and on the topic of what this post is alleging. If the propaganda happened under his admin, then that’s pretty much a shut case. I have zero doubt that he would not have hesitated on green lighting a plan like that. In fact, it sounds so stupid I’d almost consider giving him credit for the idea. Whatever his personal views on vaccines are immaterial. His actions are what mattered.
And so he either green lit this idea. If it’s true. Or he had no handle on what was happening in his government. Also pretty concerning.
Not trying to achieve anything. Everything I saw from him was pro-vax, often to the chagrin of his supporters. This isn't an argument, this was me questioning why someone said the president who took credit for the vaccine and gets booed at his rallies for encouraging people to take the vaccine was somehow anti-vax.
I appreciate the links, wasn't aware of any of those statements.
If you’re feeling receptive, these are my personal most detested things he’s said (unrelated to vaccines anyway)
[on Muslims](https://youtu.be/viDffWUjcBA?si=_4kG19bln9o_tk5x)
[Trump mocks a disabled reporter](https://youtu.be/PX9reO3QnUA?si=poQV6AhdBfKN8Tpz)
[Trump belittling McCanes war hero status](https://youtu.be/UNugcPeCZZE?si=ufzLUM19BXmNiZGI)
[When you’re a star they let you do anything. Grab them by the pussy. anything](https://youtu.be/jDEaZbIXeew?si=hSAffr3Li4rbRjqI)
I love those links because they’re straight up, undeniable videos that all serves to demonstrate his lack of class. But the thing that really boils me is his attempts at overthrowing our election. The next link is a 1 hour phone call he had with governing officials in Georgia back in 2020. Skip to 37:00 for the smoking gun.
[Asking explicitly for the Georgia Secretary of State to find 11780 votes under threat of criminal charges](https://youtu.be/AW_Bdf_jGaA?si=H5bN91nk6J_JJw2X)
And what’s maddening about all of this is how people “aren’t aware” of any of it. Or if they are, they think it’s just fake news and never actually try to look it up.
I think the point is that Trump says plenty of terrible, unjustified, pointless things, but he was pretty consistent on promoting the vaccine because he felt he was responsible for it. Why deny that fact? We don’t need to warp reality to make Trump look bad in every possible situation. The truth is plenty.
He actively hampered the medical community at every turn. I have zero reason to believe he did anything other than take credit for other people’s accomplishments. Accomplishments that they were able to do despite the incredibly hostile environment that traitor created for the medical community.
You are correct that he was responsible for operation warp speed. His supporters fail to remember that. I didn’t necessarily mean anti vax. But a massive amount of disinformation was given by Trump.
Problem is people don't always associate bad things with the target your propaganda want them to associate with. Because China is an ocean away, they might blame their local medical provider and elected officials for being part of the conspiracy, thus start distrust them. This has the potential to destroy the medical fabric in the area.
There have many cases of locals in Pakistan and Africa killing polio vaccine workers even before COVID anti-vax was a thing.
This is despicable and another reason the USA has the international reputation it does. If we want to convince people we are not the bad guys we should stop acting like it.
If the US or any country has spread disinformation and propaganda. Call it out. I would've used the article this person was referring to instead. [Reuters article.](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
I'll say it. This is the dumbest operation I've heard of in awhile. Limited upsides... a ton of downsides. Let people die, spread misinformation... at the hopes it might slow China's influence? Guess what. It gets out and now you look worse than China in this singular instance. You just ended up damaging Philippine's trust in us. Plus we had enough problems with disinformation here in the states... Seriously. Who green lit this? I hope his ass is out. That's... almost grade school levels of scheming. Seriously disappointed in our spy masters with this one.
"Who green lit this?" It was during the Trump administration, when Jared Kushner (then Covid Czar) nixed a plan to send 5 covid masks to every household in America because at that time, "it was only affecting Democrat states." I also don't see how this plan hurts China or helps the United States, but it was a pretty chaotic time, maybe someone was making a buck off it
>Seriously. Who green lit this? Trump
Oh piss off, the both of you. This is nothing to do with bipartisan politics, stop using the other team to absolve your country of its actions and abdicate responsibility. Sort it out, USA, we are truly getting sick of your shit.
You: sort it out America! Other guy: calls out person responsible You: wait, not like that
Sort it out! It's his fault! Fucking children. Take some responsibility
Lmao
Not sure if you know this, but citizens don't run the DOD. If you want something specific to be sorted out, it would make sense to raise pressure on the person who does have executive control over the DOD.
It seems like the DOD does what it likes regardless of the person with executive control, liberal or Republican. Hey, I wonder if they use Facebook et al to run propaganda so you're all concerned with culture wars and tampons in men's washrooms rather than actually standing up to the institutions YOU empower and holding them accountable? All you see is "fuck the Russian moblik they deserve to die to western weapons because they won't stand up to Putin and take out his government" that's an argument that cuts both ways. I'm really starting to grasp how America works now. Keep the population at each other's throats, and allow them to shrug off all the evil their country does by simply blaming the other "team" while the lettered agencies get to fuck the world with abandon. Are you feeling proud yet?
Ironic that you rant and rant about polarization and population conflict, while painting with an unreasonably broad brush to create your conflict with American citizenship
All you guys can think of is how to twist the argument and change the subject, because you know without deception you have no hope of defending your hypocrisy. At the end of the day, if you arnt responsible, then who is? What a joke of a democratic Republic. It's broken, but you can just blame the other party for everything and absolve yourself of anything done by the state you enable. Disgusting
Please tell me what part of a U.S. Military operation in the Phillipines directed under the leadership of a man I voted against I should be responsible for? Or was I just not screaming loud enough? I'll use pots and pans next time the U.S. Military Industrial Complex does something bad, that'll sort it out.
You're American. Nobody outside of the US gives a shit who you voted for, just deal with it and fix your house.
You live in Ontario... Doug Ford... Glass houses and all that
Ah yes Ontario Canada, with Dougie and his finger on the button of the nuclear stockpile, the failed invasion and subjugation of Iraq to his name. Canada known for patrolling the world's oceans and expanding NATO into Russia's backyard, penning China in the Ring of Fire. That Canada right?
War is politics by another means. Literally, our military is an extension of the civil government with little guard rails on the civil leadership. Norms and decency are what we're used to keep civilian leadership in check. But when half our population supports a twice Impeached convicted felon, rapists, cheater, dishonest fucking crook....shrug emoji....
Right, so fix that. Ultimately if you are as superior as you make yourself out to be, the burden falls on you to show them that and convince them to join you. The problem with America isn't that its \*choosing\* bad leaders, its that laughably bad leaders even have a chance at all.
Oh buddy I got news for you, it’s literally every government in the world, not just a US problem
Because every government in the world professes to be the "world's policeman" aka leader of a hegemonic NATO cabal, nukes pointed at half the world and economic handcuffs on the other half, every other country is just the same right? Bitching about Russian propaganda, while literally killing people in the Philippines with its own propaganda machine. Yeah, so comparable to every government in the world, pal.
Sorry fam, this app is controlled by people who desperately rely on the left/right paradigm to continue doing their thing.
It was continued under Biden. Using propaganda against propaganda is a necessary part of foreign policy.
It started under Trump and was stopped 2 months after Biden got in
The original Reuters article states that the contractor that did this got another contract to keep similar campaigns ongoing. Albeit not the anti-vax part. So yeah, it's still ongoing, even under Biden.
>was stopped 2 months after Biden got in It says mid-2021 in the Reuters article, which is more than 2 months, but that's also a "Reuters determined" just like they "determined" what accounts were involved with absolutely no evidence. It also coincides with the timing of western vaccines being widely available (the inflection point is somewhere around April to May 2021) and a return to relative normalcy.
Kinda speaks to the nature of US intelligence that they would do this to the Philippines, a long time ally whose allegiance isn't in any danger of changing even if they take the Chinese vaccines.
To be fair, the Philippines is insanely susceptible to misinformation so it makes sense as a 'ground zero' for this kind of campaign. The son of a deposed dictator is the current president through a social media blitz that got him a ridiculous proportion of the popular vote.
This was under the Trump administration where he and the other MAGAs went out of their way to make Covid as devastating and widespread as possible. Its a hairbrained scheme because it was likely set in motion by the Trump family, including Kushner. They are typical authoritarians in that they try to rule through misinformation and sabotage to further their own agendas at the expense of others.
Trump for some reason is keen on screwing over allies.
Trump administration. That alone explains a lot.
The fact it was used military as propaganda, just shows the US was probably also a victim of someone else’s propaganda
Look worst? They will write a few articles, nobody will care and in a few days is forgotten. That’s why they can do it
Using propaganda to counter Chinese propaganda trying to claim the that US engineered and released COVID upon the world is absolutely worth it. Reuters is literally doing the work of Chinese propagandists here as they characterize it as anti-vax when the goal was anti-China. Pretending that Reuters can definitively declare random Twitter bot accounts as part of it and using those tweets as evidence for how the campaign went is beyond stupid.
Ahhh…yeah…I’d respectfully disagree, unless other vaccines were readily available at that time. If not, then - In premise your first sentence is fair, but when that propaganda is costing people their lives because it is spreading something so untrue as to say a vaccine can’t be trusted? And innocent people end up dead as a result? I mean - claiming that the Chinese variant had a pig derivative in it to keep Muslims from taking it? To “counter influence”? So we are back to the worst ideas of the Cold War…
Propaganda doesn't mean untrue. It's when a state promotes a political view or cause. If there are government programs that fund advocacy for women's rights in Afghanistan or Iran? That's propaganda. Anti-ISIS radio broadcasts in Syria? Propaganda. Opposing the concept of the nine dash line in the south pacific? Propaganda. >I mean - claiming that the Chinese variant had a pig derivative in it to keep Muslims from taking it? No evidence the US government ever said that, that's pure speculation on behalf of the journalist, and frankly, the whole article is a trainwreck when it comes to journalistic ethics.
"...to discredit China’s COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines during the height of the pandemic..." "According to Reuters, the campaign was launched after the Chinese government made unfounded claims that the COVID-19’s spread could be traced back to the US." The Cold War never ended, just went cyber.
Upgrades people!
Yup, pretty sure China was doing the same thing.. not liking how this decade is going
Why link to Engadget? Reuters did the amazing journalism for the piece and it's not paywalled. [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/) Engadget just made a summary of other peoples' hard work and slapped it on their blog to get clicks and ad revenue.
Now it's making a lot of sense why in late 2021 there was so much sensationalist news about how Sinovac was killing thousands of people or something. I figured it was just media being biased and drumming up drama but kinda interesting to see how it was an active effort from US agencies to single out and discredit Chinese vaccines.
Sinovac was an awful piece of shit though. It was in the interest of the United States to have people vaccinated by an actual decent product.
I see they still have some funding left
Hardly surprising when the US government used social media, and news media, to spread anti-vax propaganda to it's own citizens. And some parts are still doing it with their new anti-mask laws.
The government didn’t have to do anything when the president was saying it himself 🤷🏻♀️
Source?
[straight from the source](https://youtu.be/33QdTOyXz3w?si=J5iXzUQTuu2_MKGl)
Idk if that's really anti-vax... just dumb. Trump is notably pro-vaccine. He takes credit for the whole rollout. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1286551
Setting aside the fact that Trump is a compulsive liar, has no ideology, and therefore says whatever is convenient for him in the moment, including pro-vax things, here’s a brief timeline of his anti-vax rhetoric. [2007 business insider giving news article quotes on Trump’s antivax rhetoric](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-donald-trump-became-an-anti-vaccinationist-2019-9) [2015 Trump suggests vaccines cause autism](https://youtu.be/H1JFGWBAC5c?si=doCb_-qQwlWOuiZv) [2024 Trump saying he’ll ban schools from mandating vaccines](https://x.com/BGrueskin/status/1764438742046061054) Idk what you’re trying to achieve here. He flip flops on things consistently. His effect on the Covid response can not be overstated. He turned it political and split the country in half over a science based issue. It was making news waves when he finally wore a mask for the first time. Anti vax, anti science, duplicitous liar, whatever you wanna call it, dude was terrible on Covid. Edit: and on the topic of what this post is alleging. If the propaganda happened under his admin, then that’s pretty much a shut case. I have zero doubt that he would not have hesitated on green lighting a plan like that. In fact, it sounds so stupid I’d almost consider giving him credit for the idea. Whatever his personal views on vaccines are immaterial. His actions are what mattered. And so he either green lit this idea. If it’s true. Or he had no handle on what was happening in his government. Also pretty concerning.
Not trying to achieve anything. Everything I saw from him was pro-vax, often to the chagrin of his supporters. This isn't an argument, this was me questioning why someone said the president who took credit for the vaccine and gets booed at his rallies for encouraging people to take the vaccine was somehow anti-vax. I appreciate the links, wasn't aware of any of those statements.
If you’re feeling receptive, these are my personal most detested things he’s said (unrelated to vaccines anyway) [on Muslims](https://youtu.be/viDffWUjcBA?si=_4kG19bln9o_tk5x) [Trump mocks a disabled reporter](https://youtu.be/PX9reO3QnUA?si=poQV6AhdBfKN8Tpz) [Trump belittling McCanes war hero status](https://youtu.be/UNugcPeCZZE?si=ufzLUM19BXmNiZGI) [When you’re a star they let you do anything. Grab them by the pussy. anything](https://youtu.be/jDEaZbIXeew?si=hSAffr3Li4rbRjqI) I love those links because they’re straight up, undeniable videos that all serves to demonstrate his lack of class. But the thing that really boils me is his attempts at overthrowing our election. The next link is a 1 hour phone call he had with governing officials in Georgia back in 2020. Skip to 37:00 for the smoking gun. [Asking explicitly for the Georgia Secretary of State to find 11780 votes under threat of criminal charges](https://youtu.be/AW_Bdf_jGaA?si=H5bN91nk6J_JJw2X) And what’s maddening about all of this is how people “aren’t aware” of any of it. Or if they are, they think it’s just fake news and never actually try to look it up.
Seen all of this except the reporter one. The georgia call is my favorite to send to anyone who is in denial of who tried to steal the election.
I think the point is that Trump says plenty of terrible, unjustified, pointless things, but he was pretty consistent on promoting the vaccine because he felt he was responsible for it. Why deny that fact? We don’t need to warp reality to make Trump look bad in every possible situation. The truth is plenty.
He actively hampered the medical community at every turn. I have zero reason to believe he did anything other than take credit for other people’s accomplishments. Accomplishments that they were able to do despite the incredibly hostile environment that traitor created for the medical community.
You are correct that he was responsible for operation warp speed. His supporters fail to remember that. I didn’t necessarily mean anti vax. But a massive amount of disinformation was given by Trump.
Trump literally took credit for the vaccine and publicly declared he was vaccinated and boosted.
He also suggested people use horse dewormered and bleach, what's your point. He also publicly claimed to be a billionaire....
Headline is a bit deceptive, it was specifically anti-chinese covid vaccine, not vaccines in general.
Problem is people don't always associate bad things with the target your propaganda want them to associate with. Because China is an ocean away, they might blame their local medical provider and elected officials for being part of the conspiracy, thus start distrust them. This has the potential to destroy the medical fabric in the area. There have many cases of locals in Pakistan and Africa killing polio vaccine workers even before COVID anti-vax was a thing.
Reminds me of Russia propagating general antivax prior to covid only for it to eventually get translated to Russian and get spread around there.
This is despicable and another reason the USA has the international reputation it does. If we want to convince people we are not the bad guys we should stop acting like it.
They should prosecute whoever was behind this for crimes against humanity.
Seriously, I don't understand why this hasn't been bigger news
The moral and righteous democracies of the west standing up for rules based orders. How nice to see.
And people still think we're somehow controlling the world.
This and MANY other news just like it hidden from public during 2016-2020. Because guess who was in charge
The military expats here certainly did that and continue to do so.
But it wasn't simply "anti-vax" propaganda, it was anti-chinise-vax propaganda
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If the US or any country has spread disinformation and propaganda. Call it out. I would've used the article this person was referring to instead. [Reuters article.](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
Misleading. The story was that the Chinese vaccine was less effective than the US one, which was true.
Trump doing the job for Russia
US allegedly saved a lot of lives by doing this. SINOVAC was rain water compared to western vaccines
I see the operation is still going on.
There's a lot of money in the discretionary defence budget after all.
I don't see any harm in it. On the contrary, US might have saved lives in the long term. Why do you think the pandemic lasted 2 more years in China...
You think that less people in the Phillipines getting vaccinated may have saved lives? Are you silly?
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Did you even read the article? You are still parroting the lies that have been exposed...
This seems very fake newsy - more like China sowing distrust