The parent company of Facebook and Instagram said on Wednesday it has taken down more than 600 accounts, pages and groups connected to a Chinese influence operation spreading COVID-19 disinformation, including an account purporting to be a fictitious Swiss biologist.
The China-based network was one of six Meta, formerly know as Facebook, removed in November for abusing its platforms, a reminder that bad actors around the world are using social media to promote false information and harass opponents.
The other operations included one supporting Hamas and two others, based in Poland and Belarus, that were focused on the migration crisis on the countries' shared border.
Meta also removed a network tied to a European anti-vaccination conspiracy movement that harassed doctors, elected officials and journalists on Facebook and other internet platforms, as well as a group of accounts in Vietnam that reported activists and government critics to Facebook in attempts to get them banned from the social network.
The China-based operation came to light after the company was alerted to an account purporting to be a Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards (no such person exists). The account posted claims on Facebook and Twitter in July that the U.S. was pressuring World Health Organization scientists to blame China for the COVID-19 virus. The posts alleging U.S. intimidation soon appeared in Chinese state media stories.
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