> That wasn't the start of the hoax... The only perpetrator that would provide an excuse for baselessly accusing the US military would have to be the US govern

> That wasn't the start of the hoax... The only perpetrator that would provide an excuse for baselessly accusing the US military would have to be the US government. So when did they fabricate that hoax? Was it when the FBI started cracking down on spies in January? Are they the ones that pressured the Mounties to start clearing their level-4 labs of Chinese virologists last year? > ...the blame for these hoaxes does not rest on the Chinese. The lying and secrecy creates the environment in which that sort of thing thrives. At some point you can't characterize predictable consequences as victim blaming, for many the benefit of doubt was lost pretty early on, following the crackdown on doctors and journalists who accurately described events. > When you feel we are encountering an unprecedented level of misinformation, why do you think that your information is untainted? Let me be more clear: China lying about something is to be expected. What is unprecedented is the combination of two things: the lie being told has severe and unavoidable consequences to everyone, and the means to combat the lies are not only open to all - but are actively being employed to do so. The beauty of opensource intelligence is that any potential for manipulation can be quantified in a way that secretly sourced data cannot.