{"id":35370,"date":"2021-08-17T18:32:08","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T09:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/17\/spreading-like-a-virus-inside-the-eus-struggle-to-debunk-covid-lies"},"modified":"2021-08-17T18:32:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T09:32:08","slug":"spreading-like-a-virus-inside-the-eus-struggle-to-debunk-covid-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=35370","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Spreading like a virus\u2019: inside the EU\u2019s struggle to debunk Covid lies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Understaffed and underpowered, a Brussels taskforce tries to fight a fake news tide that threatens to undermine the union itself<\/p>\n<p>In April 2020, near the start of the global pandemic, Felix Kartte was working 14-hour shifts as an EU policy officer, struggling to monitor a barrage of coronavirus-linked disinformation.<\/p>\n<p>Articles claiming that the pandemic was <a href=\"https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/eeas-special-report-update-2-22-april\/\">a hoax<\/a>, that it was caused by <a href=\"https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/eeas-special-report-update-2-22-april\/\">5G<\/a>, that it could be cured by <a href=\"https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/report\/traditional-medicine-heal-coronavirus-corporate-controlled-internet-wont-let-you-know\/\">hydroxychloroquine<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/eeas-special-report-disinformation-on-the-coronavirus-short-assessment-of-the-information-environment\/\">alternative medicine<\/a> were going viral across the continent \u2013 part of a global phenomenon the World Health Organization warned was becoming an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/23-09-2020-managing-the-covid-19-infodemic-promoting-healthy-behaviours-and-mitigating-the-harm-from-misinformation-and-disinformation\">\u201cinfodemic.\u201d<\/a> Kartte and colleagues in <a href=\"https:\/\/eeas.europa.eu\/headquarters\/headquarters-homepage_en\/100\/Strategic%20Communications\">StratCom<\/a>, the EU diplomatic service\u2019s strategic communications division, could detect what they say were patterns of Covid-denier and anti-vaxxer disinformation linked to Russia and to a lesser extent China, being disseminated in several languages across Europe.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/17\/spreading-like-a-virus-inside-the-eus-struggle-to-debunk-covid-lies\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Understaffed and underpowered, a Brussels taskforce tries to fight a fake news tide that threatens to undermine the union itselfIn April 2020, near the start of the global pandemic, Felix Kartte was working 14-hour shifts as an EU policy officer, strug&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,1066,236,221,530,419,235,565,1045,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-coronavirus","category-digital-media","category-europe","category-european-union","category-russia","category-social-media","category-vaccines-and-immunisation","category-world-health-organization","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35371,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35370\/revisions\/35371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}