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False Claims Spreading Across YouTube and Embraced By Chinese Communist Party Media Accuse US Army Reservist of Starting the Coronavirus (cnn.com) 183

Donie O'Sullivan, reporting for CNN Business: Maatje Benassi, a US Army reservist and mother of two, has become the target of conspiracy theorists who falsely place her at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, saying she brought the disease to China. The false claims are spreading across YouTube every day, so far racking up hundreds of thousands of apparent views, and have been embraced by Chinese Communist Party media. Despite never having tested positive for the coronavirus or experienced symptoms, Benassi and her husband are now subjects of discussion on Chinese social media about the outbreak, including among accounts that are known drivers of large-scale coordinated activities by their followers.

The claims have turned their lives upside down. The couple say their home address has been posted online and that, before they shut down their accounts, their social media inboxes were overrun with messages from believers of the conspiracy. "It's like waking up from a bad dream going into a nightmare day after day," Maatje Benassi told CNN Business in an exclusive interview, the first time she has spoken publicly since being smeared online.

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False Claims Spreading Across YouTube and Embraced By Chinese Communist Party Media Accuse US Army Reservist of Starting the Cor

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  • and it's working pretty well. Even if everybody reading my post knows that, it doesn't matter. We're talking about who's to blame for the outbreak and not who's to blame for the abysmal response to it after decades of warning.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      China and their communist party are much worse than anything in the US.

      • Way to reflect the problem the OP just called attention to.

      • I think the real difference is the existence of opposition parties and people with different motives and perspectives in the US.

        I laughed at Baghdad Bob back then, thinking we were above that. Now I know better. For one thing I've never read anything stupider from any national leader than Trump's idea of using disinfectants as medicine, and everybody in his administration tiptoeing around what he said. Without opposing parties and the free press, we are no different than anybody else.

    • by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Monday April 27, 2020 @01:26PM (#59997394) Journal

      We're talking about who's to blame for the outbreak and not who's to blame for the abysmal response to it after decades of warning.

      Much worse is that 90% of those abysmal people will be reelected. With all our new found free time, we should be looking for fresh meat for congress, and maybe we can drain the swamp. We can at least sweep the house

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Much worse is that 90% of those abysmal people will be reelected. With all our new found free time, we should be looking for fresh meat for congress, and maybe we can drain the swamp.

        Unless we change the population, the "fresh meat" in congress will be just as rotten as the old meat. That's why Republicans couldn't get a decent candidate over Trump last election, and why Democrats couldn't get anyone better than Biden this time.

    • Instead of repeating Katrina, let's focus on how to fix rather than who to blame. It's well past the point of being petty and stupid. The Democrats are being as petty as Trump is.

  • Six Degrees (Score:5, Funny)

    by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Monday April 27, 2020 @12:48PM (#59997232) Homepage Journal

    Judging by the apparent speed of its spread through Hollywood, I've always assumed that patient zero was Kevin Bacon [wikipedia.org]. :-D

  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Monday April 27, 2020 @12:52PM (#59997246)
    Which obviously squares the tinfoil-lined circle.
  • It doesn't matter whether or not it X's fault or Y's fault, or nobody's fault, because the answer doesn't actually change what we need to be doing here and now to deal with it.

    Maybe once this is all over we can reflect upon it and see if any particular side was to blame (although I doubt it), but in the meantime we need to just stop pointing fingers and blaming others for the problems the world is facing when we are actually all in this together.

    • It doesn't matter whether or not it X's fault or Y's fault, or nobody's fault, because the answer doesn't actually change what we need to be doing here and now to deal with it.

      Actually it does very much matter whose fault it is. Because if the virus is a deliberately designed one, those who designed and released it presumably have an antidote.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )
        There's three very important assumptions you are making there:

        1) you assume that there actually *is* a party to be blamed.

        2) You assume that whoever is to blame has the antidote

        3) More generally, you are also assuming that knowing whose fault it is will somehow change how we should actually be responding here and now. It might, but it also might not. If the people you could blame were already dead for instance, what difference would that make now?

        All available evidence points to this being a natu

  • After her life is destroyed, offer her monetary help through proxy in exchange of her "admission" of the conspiracy theory.

  • They said they were going to remove content that violated WHO recommendations.... Well, conspiracy-theory crap is definitely something that I'm sure the WHO is against. So, YT should just delete the channels spreading this junk and be done with it. Problem solved.
    • We need to fix up free speech laws to allow better recourse for those being damaged by harmful speech. The US constitution does not give a blank check on speech, there are limits when it comes to removing the rights of other people. Corporations will always turn a blind eye until someone is hurt, then promise to fix things, then go back to business as usual.

      • Typically harmful speech is what libel and slander laws are for.

        "corporations should keep us safe and censor us for our own good " is a position far worse than the original problem.

  • Deliberate spreading misinformation about others should be a crime in just the same way deliberate spreading disease is. The 1st Amendment doesn't apply to 'terroristic threats' free speech is not absolutely it has has been qualified.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Ah, but the people actually distributing the information and profiting from it ... youtube ... is shielded by law. This loophole seems to be steadily destroying our society. If some shock-jock goes on air and violates the broadcast laws with incitement or fraud, the station gets fined or shut down. They don't get to just hire an endless stream of disposable shock-jocks and keep making money off their garbage. But it works fine on youtube and facebook.
  • That's bullshit. Everyone knows it's Obama's fault.
    • No, that's incorrect.
      Blame Canada
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        I've been waiting almost two decades to post this one again. Thanks for the opportunity!

        Times have changed, Slashdot is getting worse
        It's full of trolls not articles, where's the "news for nerds?"
        Should we all blame Taco?
        Or blame that guy Jamie?
        Or should we blame some chick named Natalie?

        No! Blame Hemos!
        Blame Hemos!
        It seems that everything's gone wrong
        since Hemos came along
        Blame Hemos!
        Shame on Hemos!
        Here's not even a real editor, anyway!

  • by mschaffer ( 97223 ) on Monday April 27, 2020 @01:36PM (#59997458)

    Scientists have confirmed that China is where SARS-CoV-2 has originated. They have sequenced the RNA and discovered fake UL and CE listings as well as a Banggood.com part number.

  • The couple say their home address has been posted online

    Their address isn't a secret.

    1835 73rd Ave NE, Medina, WA 98039 [wikipedia.org]

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      For those who don't get the (really lame) joke, that's the delivery address for one of Bill Gate's houses.

  • Methinks China dost protest too much. This might be poisoning the well against not an accidental lab release, but a deliberate one by China. Laugh, but file it away and watch.

    Remember the US deliberately releasing it in China was almost immediately pushed by China, then rolled back as by a rogue "mid level" official.

    Let's get out our popcorn and watch and see.

  • When the Internet was coming intto the public's awareness, I remember touts about being able to '...communicate with anyone in the world within seconds!'.

    More and more, that doesn't seem like an advantage.
  • So they allow junk like this, but remove and demonotize a legitimate medical company (Healight) that actually has been attempting to try to treat infections with UV light because Trump suggested maybe we should try something like that?

Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting.

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