“Zha Liyou, the Chinese consul general in Kolkata, India, tweeted an unfounded claim that Covid-19 could have been imported to China from the United States through a batch of Maine lobsters shipped to a seafood market in Wuhan in November 2019,” said NBC News.
“It marks the latest in a series of theories that have been pushed by pro-China accounts since the start of the pandemic,” the report noted.
Since the discovery of the tweet, a researcher at the University of Oxford has identified over 500 Twitter accounts that have spread the message almost verbatim, translated into several languages “including English, Spanish, French, Polish, Korean and even Latin” that were posted between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. China time.
China has a vast network of paid internet trolls, called the Wumao Army, and the propaganda campaign tying COVID to US lobsters has all the hallmarks of a Wumao attack..
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Marcel Schliebs, a disinformation researcher at the university, uncovered more than 550 Twitter accounts spreading a nearly identical message. Translated into multiple languages, the message was sent at similar times each day between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. China Standard Time. (2/6)
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 21, 2021
h/t DeploraVision