Rampant coronavirus misinformation spread by Russian and Chinese journalists is finding a bigger audience on social media in France and Germany than content from the European nations’ own premier news outlets, according to new research.
Coronavirus misinformation spread by Russian and Chinese journalists is finding a bigger audience on social media in France and Germany than content from the European nations' own premier news outlets, according to new researchhttps://t.co/8oiKqOWe0f
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 29, 2020
Whether it is distorted coverage or outright conspiracy theories, articles written in French and German by foreign state media are resonating widely on Facebook and Twitter, often with their origins unclear, the Oxford Internet Institute said in a report published on Monday.
Rampant coronavirus misinformation by Russian & Chinese journalists
Thus, State-controlled media is responsible for accelerating the spread of rampant coronavirus misinformation, harming democratic sentiments, as well as undermining democracy at large. Chinese & Russian journalists have been called out for spreading misinformation. As readership enjoyed by the media moguls is vast, this poses a serious threat to people already paranoid amidst an on-going pandemic.
The institute, which is part of Oxford University, looked at content generated by leading media outlets from Russia and China, as well as from Iran and Turkey — all of which are state-controlled or closely aligned to regimes in power.
Its report comes as the US government imposes new restrictions on Chinese state media, and builds on previous research by the institute that laid bare the penetration of such foreign outlets in English-language markets.
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In their French, German as well as Spanish output, state media groups have “politicised the coronavirus by criticising Western democracies, praising their home countries, and promoting conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus”, the institute said.
US accuses China and Russia of conspiratorial activities
The United States on Friday accused China and Russia of stepping up cooperation to spread false narratives over the coronavirus pandemic, saying Beijing was increasingly adopting techniques honed by Moscow, which resulted in rampant coronavirus misinformation.
“Even before the COVID-19 crisis we assessed a certain level of coordination between Russia and the PRC in the realm of propaganda,” said Lea Gabrielle, coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which tracks foreign propaganda.
“But with this pandemic, the cooperation has accelerated rapidly,” she told reporters.
“We see this convergence as a result of what we consider to be pragmatism between the two actors who want to shape public understanding of the COVID pandemic for their own purposes,” she said.
Democracy in danger amid coronavirus misinformation
“A majority of the content in these outlets is factually based. But what they have, especially if you look at the Russian outlets, is an agenda to discredit democratic countries,” Oxford researcher Jonathan Bright told AFP.
“The subtle weave in the overarching narrative is that democracy is on the verge of collapse.”
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The institute looked at the output from Russia’s RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency; China Global Television Network (CGTN), China Radio International (CRI), and Xinhua News Agency; plus foreign-language output from Iranian and Turkish networks.
It measured median engagement per shared article — how many times a user actively shares or likes an article on Facebook, or comments about it and retweets it on Twitter.
The study covered each outlet’s 20 most popular stories from May 18 to June 5.
The President jokes about CNN.
Now we’re arresting CNN reporters for doing their jobs.
We’re watching the downfall of democracy before our eyes.pic.twitter.com/NB76PpCwoV
— Yano 🟪 (@JasonYanowitz) May 29, 2020
What is the source of rampant coronavirus misinformation?
French-language content from RT scored an average of 528 in user engagement on the two platforms, and 374 for Xinhua, compared to 105 for the newspaper Le Monde. In German, RT articles scored 158 on Facebook and Twitter, against 90 for Der Spiegel.
The institute’s previous study in April found that in English, heavily politicised news stories from the same state media groups could achieve as much as 10 times the level of user engagement as more sober sources such as the BBC.
Bright added: “A significant portion of social media is people consuming content that is directly funded by foreign governments, and it’s not very clear to the reader that that’s the case.”
Read More: China has finally retreated from virus conspiracy claims: Claims US
Similar engagement levels showed in Spanish-language content, including from the Iranian state broadcaster’s service HispanTV, which the report said shares the Russian outlets’ promotion of “anti-US sentiments” for audiences in Latin America.
Examples in French and German included heated coverage from the Russian outlets of the “gilets jaunes” protest movement in France, and the COVID-19 and ensuing economic crises in Europe.
The report also examined content in German, French, and Spanish from Turkey’s TRT network, which it said focused more on positive portrayals of the Turkish government’s actions against the pandemic.
In contrast, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian media all promoted baseless theories, including that the US military unleashed the coronavirus, which originated late last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Propaganda compounds virus outbreak
The media organisations in question claim to offer a non-Western perspective on news and deny they are propagandists.
Last week, China threatened to retaliate after four more of its media groups were reclassified as “foreign missions” in the United States. The quartet joined CGTN, CRI, and Xinhua, which were already designated by Washington as state-sponsored actors, rather than as media.
In Britain, RT has been fined for breaking rules on media impartiality. In France, President Emmanuel Macron accused the Russian network of spreading “deceitful propaganda” during the 2017 presidential election.
Such rampant coronavirus misinformation may be more detrimental to the world community than the virus itself, which only has a fatality rate of 5%. Thus, it is imperative to carefully filter out propaganda, from actual news that does not revolve around conspiracies.
AFP with additional input by GVS News Desk
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