Covid-19 disinformation and social media manipulation trends : pro-Russian vaccine politics drives new disinformation narratives
Elise Thomas (Author), Albert Zhang (Author), Emilia Currey (Author), Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Issuing body)
This report provides a case study showing how disinformation about vaccines and vaccine trials can be laundered through the information ecosystem. Our research demonstrates how narratives can move from fringe and questionable sources, such as a media outlet for a pro-Russian separatist enclave in Eastern Ukraine, through a multitude of multilingual platforms to become decontextualised ‘facts’ that are simply asserted or incorporated into other narratives with no reference to their origin. Significant questions remain about the nature of the viral Press Review 2.0 post on 24 July, and whether that was authentic or, potentially, coordinated inauthentic behaviour. From the beginning, this was a deeply political narrative, as the initial disinformation from the LPR was published the day a er Russia announced plans to mass-produce its own vaccine in a matter of weeks. The likely goal of this effort was to smear both the US and Ukrainian governments by suggesting that they didn’t care about the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. This initial focus was swiftly augmented by Russian-language media to add a focus on Moderna and to undermine confidence in Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate. What this case study highlights is the shift away from disinformation and geopolitical battles over the origin of the virus and the entry into a new phase of the fight to control the narrative: politicised disinformation and conspiracies around the hopes for a Covid-19 vaccine
eBook, English, 2020
Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Barton, ACT., 2020