Facebook took down a fake Swiss scientist account that was part of an international misinfo campaign
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Buried deep within Facebook's November report on Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior is a tale of international intrigue that seems more like a Netflix drama than an attempted disinformation campaign (although the way Netflix mines social media for ideas these days, maybe stay tuned). On July 24th, a Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards claimed on Facebook and Twitter that the US was pressuring World Health Organization (WHO) scientists studying the origins of COVID-19.
His claims spread quickly on social media, as such claims are wont to do, and within a week's time, the Global Times and People's Daily, two state-run Chinese media outlets, were denouncing Wilson Edwards' claims as intimidation" by the US. Wilson Edwards created his...