Since the coronavirus pandemic began, China has been doubling down on its social media presence to spread its own propaganda.
NBC News reports that China has stepped up its Twitter activity since January, especially in recent days.
The number of official tweets sent out by the government has reached more than 90,000 since April. The tweets come from 200 different diplomatic and state-run media accounts, according to data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a tool that aggregates accounts connected to the Chinese government.
China is using the social media platform to create an information war on COVID-19. A May 8 tweet sent out by the spokesperson for China's Foreign Affairs Ministry alleging the coronavirus came from a U.S. government lab was liked more than 4,000 times.
The allegation that the coronavirus originated from U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland came after U.S. officials questioned if the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
“The #US keeps calling for transparency & investigation. Why not open up Fort Detrick & other bio-labs for international review? Why not invite #WHO & int'l experts to the US to look into #COVID19 source & response?" the spokesperson tweeted.
The U.S. lab conspiracy theory has been tweeted about more than 30 times from official Chinese diplomatic and state-run media accounts in the past two months, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
Bret Schafer, the digital disinformation fellow at the alliance, has been tracking China’s social media for months.
He told NBC News that China’s Twitter activity from government accounts has doubled since January. He also noted the number of diplomatic Twitter accounts has tripled to 135, up from just 40 accounts this time last year. Many tweets are in English or Mandarin, but the diplomatic accounts are often in the language of an embassy's host country.
He said the Chinese accounts "have become more aggressive, more conspiratorial, and the ones who have done that are their most popular accounts and have by far the most engagement.”
Director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States Robert Daly said China is often responding to allegations made by Americans.
"Obnoxious and childish as this is, it should be noted that such Chinese statements have generally mirrored earlier American statements. Rhetorically, China is counterpunching — not throwing the first blow," Daly said. "The primary goal of this rhetoric is to demonstrate to Chinese domestic constituencies that the Communist Party is not lying prostrate before American accusations.”
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