Chinese agents spread messages that sowed virus panic: US officials

WASHINGTON • The alarming messages came fast and furious in mid-March, popping up on the cellphone screens and social media feeds of millions of Americans grappling with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Spread the word, the messages said: The Trump administration was about to lock down the entire country. "They will announce this as soon as they have troops in place to help prevent looters and rioters," warned one of the messages, which cited a source in the Department of Homeland Security.

"He said he got the call last night and was told to pack and be prepared for the call today with his dispatch orders."

The messages became so widespread over 48 hours that the White House's National Security Council issued an announcement via Twitter that they were "FAKE".

Since that wave of panic, US intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives helped push the messages across platforms, according to six US officials, who asked not to be identified.

The amplification techniques are alarming to officials because the disinformation showed up as texts on many Americans' cellphones, a tactic that several of the officials said they had not seen before.

That has spurred agencies to look at new ways in which China, Russia and other nations are using various platforms to spread disinformation during the pandemic, they said.

The origin of the messages remains murky. US officials declined to reveal details of the intelligence linking Chinese agents to the dissemination of the disinformation.

The officials interviewed for this article work in six different agencies. They included both career civil servants and political appointees, and some have spent many years analysing China.

Their broader warnings about China's spread of disinformation are supported by recent findings from outside bipartisan research groups, including the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the Centre for a New American Security, which is expected to release a report on the topic next month.

Two US officials stressed they did not believe Chinese operatives created the lockdown messages but rather amplified existing ones. Those efforts enabled the messages to catch the attention of enough people that they then spread on their own, with little need for further work by foreign agents. The messages appeared to gain significant traction on Facebook as they were also proliferating through texts, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

US officials said the operatives had adopted some of the techniques mastered by Russia-backed trolls, such as creating fake social media accounts to push messages to sympathetic Americans, who in turn unwittingly help spread them.

Other rival powers might have been involved in the dissemination, too.

US officials said China, borrowing from Russia's strategies, has been trying to widen political divisions in the United States. As public dissent simmers over lockdown policies in several states, officials worry it will be easy for China and Russia to amplify the partisan disagreements.

"It is part of the playbook of spreading division," said Senator Angus King.

NYTIMES