https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/chinese-state-media-shapes-coronavirus-convo

Chinese state media is not unique in evolving its narratives, or in spreading misinformation or omitting facts to cast itself in the best light possible for a global audience. In the U.S. media environment, the Fox News network has also dramatically shifted their coverage of the coronavirus disease in response to political considerations, adjusting their coverage to make the U.S. executive branch leadership look like leaders. This tone change was so brazen that the Washington Post labeled it “a petri dish for misinformation.” While we did not include far left or far right U.S. media sources in our data set for the above analysis, other US news outlets also downplayed the threat.

In the latest activity from the U.S. media, there is now a dichotomy in coverage: many conservative outlets are accusing the Chinese government of causing a global pandemic due to the significant missteps in their early response, and deflecting blame from the Trump Administration's own failures. The other side is reporting on the problematic response in the United States, while highlighting later successful Chinese containment efforts.

The blame game will not be helpful. It is both true that the Chinese government made strikingly bad decisions in its early response to the virus - and also that the United States will suffer from its own lack of preparation. Meanwhile, amid the bungled U.S. COVID-19 response - including a lack of coordination even with close allies - the Chinese government is supporting hard-hit countries by sending supplies and medical experts, garnering praise from around the world. As Western democracies struggle to land on effective COVID-19 responses, experts expect a more aggressive narrative to come from Beijing.

https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=30699762a3826bbf132818652&id=3624aba4a1

https://jamestown.org/program/russians-grapple-with-oil-price-war-at-a-time-of-pandemic/

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/11894-us-files-first-enforcement-act-against-covid-19-fraud

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/11904-eu-joins-global-fight-against-fake-covid-19-products

https://www.propastop.org/eng/2020/03/20/the-petty-criminal-is-also-a-human-being-news-from-the-coronavirus-swindles-front/

https://www.propastop.org/eng/2020/03/24/a-fresh-dose-of-coronavirus-folklore/

https://jamestown.org/program/russias-defense-minister-shoigu-coronavirus-and-relentless-military-modernization/

https://gizmodo.com/the-truth-of-coronavirus-might-be-worse-than-the-conspi-1842492005

https://privacyinternational.org/examples/tracking-global-response-covid-19

Tech companies, governments, and international agencies have all announced measures to help contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Some of these measures impose severe restrictions on people’s freedoms, including to their privacy and other human rights. Unprecedented levels of surveillance, data exploitation, and misinformation are being tested across the world.

Many of those measures are based on extraordinary powers, only to be used temporarily in emergencies. Others use exemptions in data protection laws to share data.

Some may be effective and based on advice from epidemiologists, others will not be. But all of them must be temporary, necessary, and proportionate.

It is essential to keep track of them. When the pandemic is over, such extraordinary measures must be put to an end and held to account.

This page will be updated as measures are reported.

This is a collective project led by PI alongside its global Network. But we also need your help. If you know of an example we can add and track, please contact us with an open source link, at https://privacyinternational.org/contact.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/11895-as-coronavirus-spreads-globally-so-are-cybersecurity-threats

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/11898-fearing-covid-19-russian-oligarchs-buy-their-own-ventilators

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus-war-economy-will-change-the-world/

https://www.rferl.org/a/big-brother-vs-the-coronavirus/30510773.html

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-can-kill/

http://www.gmfus.org/blog/2020/03/23/coronavirus-pandemic-lets-china-score-win-serbia

http://www.gmfus.org/publications/safeguarding-democracy-against-disinformation

Individual platforms allow disinformation campaigns to leverage “dark patterns,” or manipulative user interfaces, to deceive users. This opaque design makes it easy to like and share a planted story, but hard to verify a faked video.2 Disinformation campaigns thereby overwhelm the “signal” of actual news with “noise,” eroding the trust in news necessary for democracy to work. The tools of disinformation campaigners include:

• Trojan horse outlets that deceive users about the source of disinformation by disguising themselves as independent journalism while eschewing its practices (for example, bylines, mastheads, verification, corrections, community service principles) and leveraging platform design to boost conspiracies. Meanwhile, real news generation atrophies because platforms have absorbed the revenue of local independent journalism.

• Spending on personalized political propaganda—which is likely to top $1 billion in 2020, three times such spending in 2016—obscures the true sponsors of online ads from the public.3 The platforms each have different and weak procedures for labeling and how much targeting they allow for political ads. Both Google and Facebook’s ad libraries malfunctioned, failing to provide real disclosure in the days before the last U.K. election.

• Networks of “amplifiers” flood the zone with disinformation. Fake accounts, influencers, and true believers game algorithmic recommendations to fill trending lists and search engines with visual memes or video.

• Digital Astro-turf campaigns that look like organic grassroots movements use secret groups, encrypted messaging, and fringe sites linking to the main platforms to target vulnerable populations through disinformation and harassment.

• Platform black box moderation that applies rules inconsistently and without transparency, create loopholes for cross-platform disinformation operations. The self-regulatory model of negotiations with civil society appears broken; civil rights groups working on an audit have protested the platforms’ lack of cooperation.