bilibili iqiyi kuaishou and youku a sevensecond version set to driving music appeared on douyin the chinese version of tiktokclearly pushing these kinds of conspiracy theories disinformation does not usually result in any negative consequences for them said mareike ohlberg a senior fellow in the asia program of the german marshall fundap found the story was viewed over 7 million times online with more than 18 million comments shares or reactions those numbers are an undercount because many platforms did not publish metrics and they dont account for television viewership or circulation in closed groups accounts promoting the content had a combined total of over 817 million followers though many are likely to be duplicates or fakesconspiracies brewing in the united states reinforced chinas messaging in late march george webb a forprofit conspiracy theorist in washington dc doxed a us army reservist as patient zero claiming on youtube that she brought the virus from fort detrick to wuhan during the october military gameswebbs video circulated widely in china and was picked up by staterun global times the falsely accused woman got death threats and webbs video was pulled from youtube but its still live in china on weibo where it has accrued millions of viewsin search of an endingin april russia and iran largely dropped the bioweapon conspiracy in their overt messaging they had a more pressing concern surging numbers of deadchina carried onbeijing was besieged by demands for accountability in the us there were calls for a pandemic tariff and canceling us debt with china republicans in congress began introducing legislation to strip china of its sovereign immunity so americans could sueaustralian officials called for an inquiry into the origins and spread of coronavirus chinas ambassador to australia cheng jingye issued a veiled threat maybe the ordinary people will say why should we drink australian wine eat australian beef he saidwithin a month china banned beef from four big australian producers and slapped an 80 tariff on australian barley moves widely seen as retribution though china has denied that chargechinese officials and state media continued to promote madeinamerica covid19 conspiraciesstate broadcaster cgtn jumped in on may 16 releasing a slick documentary about fort detrick set to spooky music that has been viewed on its youtube channel more than 82000 times youtube has not flagged the video as statesponsored content despite a 2018 policy to label governmentfunded videos a youtube spokesperson said that because the video is about covid19 it was labeled with an information panel about the virus instead of the publisherthe video has been played on chinas bilibili platform 378000 times and broadcast in english french spanish arabic indonesian filipino as well as by ntv a houston tv station that failed to note the content was chinese government propagandantv said it has removed the video flagged by ap i have warned our newsroom department for the future said navroz prasla the ceo of ntv which says it is the largest south asian tv network in north