‘US let monkeypox loose’ conspiracy theories swirl on China’s Weibo platform
- Chinese state media has not accused US of intentionally spreading virus, but many social media users have not refrained from such accusations
- Meanwhile, a leading WHO adviser says monkeypox outbreak may have spread through sex at 2 raves, in Belgium and Spain
Chinese social media users are speculating the US could be the source of monkeypox infections now reported in at least a dozen countries, including the UK, Spain and Australia.
The viral infection has been highlighted as a trending topic on popular social media platform Weibo for the past three days with a hashtag on the US reporting two suspected monkeypox cases attracting more than 51 million views as of Monday.
While Chinese state media has refrained from accusing the US of intentionally spreading monkeypox, an accusation it made about Covid-19, many social media users have not held back.
A 2021 report on biosecurity preparedness planning by a US non-government organisation, Nuclear Threat Initiative, which included a scenario of a monkeypox pandemic, has been taken out of context to suggest that the US government knew the outbreak was coming.
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What is monkeypox and should we be worried that it’s spreading?
Nationalist influencer Shu Chang, who has 6.41 million Weibo followers, deliberately misconstrued the report and posted that it showed “a plan by the US to leak bioengineered monkeypox virus”.
