> but "propaganda" implies some kind of motive and objective by a particular actor or set of actors. Speculation about motives is difficult, my most prominent

> but "propaganda" implies some kind of motive and objective by a particular actor or set of actors. Speculation about motives is difficult, my most prominent idea is that a subset of scientists agreed it was better to craft a noble lie than to be transparent with their ideas. Repeating a lie often enough so that people believe it to be true is a law of propaganda. > lies, distortions of the truth, misunderstandings, assumptions, ignorance I don't see how a "distortion of the truth" has less requirements for a motive than propaganda. What do you believe was the motivation to distort the truth? If you have an idea I would gladly entertain it. I don't think "misunderstanding" fits the case where people were targeted for dissenting views. > a contagion leak makes complete sense with no conspiracy theories needed Yes indeed, this would not have needed any conspiracies at all, but we got one for political reasons as the "official" message was crafted to deny the possibility of a leak outright by a subset of the scientific community. For personal gratification or just to calm the public or any other reason is of secondary importance here. The fact remains that there were attempts to suppress such views. > the resulting pandemic could be used as an instrument to cause and inflict political harm in order benefit rivals or perhaps entire states and regimes. The problem is the lack of transparency and intentional lies, this is off topic. If it was an accident, there must be consequences for research like this. Maybe it has to be disallowed, perhaps more security is needed. I can see how such measures might run counter to the interest of the group that came up with the idea to neglect that possibility. Just to make it very clear, that is speculation about a motive and is not substantiated. Substantiated was the lack of truthful information.