How did "China Use Kirk’s Murder to Stoke Conspiracy Theories and Division"?
NYT sourced a poorly researched Substack post by NewsGuard, which identified ONE anti-CCP Twitter account spreading a Made-in-America falsehood.
The New York Times yesterday (Wednesday, September 17) reported Russia, China and Iran Use Kirk’s Murder to Stoke Conspiracy Theories and Division.
The lede reads
In the week since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Russia, Iran and China have spread thousands of false or incendiary claims about what happened to the conservative activist, in an effort to stoke political divisions or to portray the United States as a dysfunctional country.
Official state media in the three countries mentioned Mr. Kirk 6,200 times from Sept. 10 to Sept. 17, framing the killing as a conspiracy, though they differed on the nature of the plot involved, according to an analysis on Wednesday by NewsGuard, a company that tracks disinformation online.
The only factual information related to China reported in the NYT piece is
China, not inaccurately, portrayed the United States as a deeply divided country, but one pro-China account on X falsely stated that the shooter donated $224 to President Trump’s election campaign in 2020, according to NewsGuard.
First of all, what the report has is only “one pro-China account on X”.
The NYT did not even make an effort to link that anonymous account to “China” - the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however you define it.
And the “one pro-China account” is not “pro-China” at all. Its posts constantly mock the PRC/CCP and Donald Trump.
Secondly, let’s examine the analysis by NewsGuard, which is solely the following Substack post.
The only factual information related to China in the Substack post is
China spread false claims about the charged suspect Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old U.S. citizen from Utah, to paint the U.S. as unstable and divided.
……
China: Pro-China commentators used Kirk’s assassination to mock the U.S. and spread false information about the suspect, portraying America as deeply divided.
A Sept. 12 X post from a pro-China account claimed suspect Tyler Robinson donated $224 to the Trump campaign in 2020, writing: “Meet Charlie Kirk's assassin Taylor Robinson. Not Black. Not transgender. Not Muslim. Not an immigrant. Not a Democrat. A white Christian, conservative, Republican male, who even donated to Trump.”
Actually: Robinson did not donate to Trump’s 2020 campaign. The campaign finance records cited as proof show a contribution from a different person named Tyler Robinson, according to news reports and government data.
So the only example NewsGuard was able to present in this “analysis” is one Sept. 12 X post from the above-mentioned “pro-China account”. (Again) Which it is not, as its posts constantly mock the PRC/CCP and Donald Trump.
The post in question, after a full week, recorded only 57 comments, 67 retweets, 337 likes, and 50.2k views - clearly not a very influential tweet in a sea of tweets in the aftermath of the despicable assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Thirdly, let’s look at the specific false information.
Actually: Robinson did not donate to Trump’s 2020 campaign. The campaign finance records cited as proof show a contribution from a different person named Tyler Robinson, according to news reports and government data.
But anyone who has spent time on Twitter/X in recent days knows that the particular falsehood first started in the English language and has been reposted numerous times in English. It almost certainly originated in the United States.
Again, this is the so-called “pro-China account” post cherry-picked by NewsGuard
The individual apparently stole the following tweet from Azariah O'Buley @bulerious, who hosts “The Upper Room Podcast” on Spotify, and, as far as I can tell, is definitely not Chinese but likely American.
Her tweet containing the viral falsehood, since deleted, was much more influential with at least 229 comments, 661 retweets, 5.2k likes, and 236.7k views. [snapshot included from a Yahoo news post]
So, what do we actually have?
An apparently anti-CCP/PRC Twitter account, which is, therefore, impossible to be a CCP/PRC government-controlled account, stole a tweet from an American Twitter account and, as many have done in the chaotic week, spread it on an insignificant scale.
For unknown reasons, NewsGuard picked up the insignificant tweet, mischaracterized the account as “pro-China,” failed to prove any links to the CCP/PRC government, and cited it, as its only example, of “China” spreading false information.
And The New York Times, in this case, just printed it, culminating in the headline and subheadline.
Russia, China, and Iran Use Kirk’s Murder to Stoke Conspiracy Theories and Division
State media and online trolls have seized on the assassination to score geopolitical points against the United States, according to a new report.
Some Troubled Science Reporting at South China Morning Post
I have long refrained from public criticism of news reports from international media on China, especially those written by journalists based in China or of Chinese heritage, for a number of reasons. One primary reason is that journalism, in general, is under siege worldwide, and, in particular, reporting on China has become increasingly difficult. I se…
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Why does anyone outside the US need to do any of this, when the dynamics unfolding within the US carries far more of this conspiratorial and divisive momentum? In running down this meaningless rabbit hole, the NYT inadvertently distracts attention from the deep dysfunctionality that has been revealed as the layers of faux civility fell by the wayside in an instant of domestic hate and vitriol. Americans are at Americans' throats.
Even an NYT reporter (with free access to information) is capable of knee jerk reaction of looking for “境外敌对势力”. And grouping China, Russia and Iran together for disinformation/misinformation seems also farfetched as one could easily group together similarly bs social media posts from Italy, Germany and Hungary.