EU says China behind 'huge wave' of Covid-19 disinformation

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/eu-says-china-behind-huge-wave-covid-19-disinformation-campaign


Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Wed 10 Jun 2020 06.16 EDT


China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the European Union, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic.

The European commission said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation.

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The EU commission also issued an implicit rebuke to Donald Trump, as it noted the harmful effects of his bizarre suggestions about injecting bleach to treat coronavirus. Without naming the US president, a commission document stated that such false claims can be “very harmful”, noting that Belgium’s Poison Control Centre has recorded an increase of 15% in the number of bleach-related incidents.

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