In these hours Meta has removed Facebook from its platform in China over 500 accounts connected to a network of disinformation. Apparently, these profiles had promoted the claims of a fake Swiss biologist named “Wilson Edwards”, who claimed that the United States was meddling in research on the origins of Covid 19. And the Chinese media then shared the claims of the fake expert. . Despite this, the Swiss embassy has repeatedly raised doubts about the real existence of this scientist. But let’s see in detail what happened.
Facebook: over 500 accounts removed in China for the spread of fake news
In early July, an account passing off as a Swiss biologist called Wilson Edwards made misleading statements on Facebook and Twitter. According to the “fake scholar”, the United States was putting pressure on scientists from the World Health Organization working on the origins of Covid 19. Edwards, in fact, accused them of wanting to shift the responsibility to China. For their part, the Chinese media bounced the news reported by the biologist. In August, however, the Swiss embassy said it could be a fake account. After all, the biologist’s profile had only been opened a few weeks ago, and he had only three friends.
Stating that “there was no registry of a Swiss citizen with the name ‘Wilson Edwards’ and no academic articles under the name,” the embassy urged the Chinese media to remove any mention of the account. Given the situation, Meta conducted research on what happened. And he found “connections to people in mainland China, including employees of Sichuan Silence Information Technology Co Ltd … and individuals associated with Chinese state-owned infrastructure companies headquartered around the world.” Therefore, in China Facebook removed 524 accounts, 20 Page, 4 Groups and 86 Instagram accounts. Apparently, it was a group of accounts active in spreading fake news. In doing so, therefore, Facebook has proved to be still active in the fight against disinformation.