How a Lie Goes Viral This thread from NBC’s Ben Collins is a remarkable chronicle of how disinformation spreads through the far-right ecosystem:
Ben Collins @oneunderscore__
Quick thread: I spent the last week figuring how the American far-right became obsessed with "Ukranian biolabs." I learned two things: 1 — The right really is warming back up to Putin. 2 — The origins of this specific conspiracy theory are dumber than you’d ever imagine.
March 14th 2022
1,833 Retweets3,903 Likes
I’ve unrolled the thread:
First off, Russia has always claimed its adversaries were the ones using biological weapons when they were about to use them. But they didn’t use it to justify the Ukraine invasion until last week. Putin gave an ambling speech before the invasion. Never mentioned biolabs.
"Biolabs" weren't a talking point until Russia's first line of propaganda—about Zelensky being a “nazi”—failed spectacularly. Here's a striking chart from the data company Pyrra, tracking “biolabs” on 15 influential far-right social networks. That jump? The day of the invasion.
So what made the “biolabs” conspiracy theory take off on the day of the invasion? It was a Twitter thread from a now-banned account called @ WarClandestine. The account was previously a QAnon account that had been evading bans with new names.
WarClandestine’s "biolabs" thread spread like wildfire across the right on Rumble and the QAnon forum TheGreatAwakening. It got a massive push by TheDonald, now called PatriotsDotWin. You might remember TheDonald because its users posted literal battle plans before January 6th.
But let’s dive deeper into where @WarClandestine got his insider info about the Ukrainian biolabs. Where did he get that map of Ukrainian biolabs for his viral tweet? From an antivaxx Gab user eight days prior. It had 3 comments. It just wasn't part of the talking points yet.
Once @WarClandestine’s post took off among right-wing influencers, it was everywhere on the English-language far-right. Pro-Trump and Q forums had been uneasy rooting against Putin. The “biolabs” allowed them to refocus on their major enemies: the Bidens and Anthony Fauci.
By Tuesday, China’s foreign affairs ministry started pushing the conspiracy theory, de facto aligning with Russia. On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson led his show claiming the “Biden administration was funding secret biolabs in Ukraine.”
After failing for two full weeks, Russian propaganda finally had its line that resonated with the global far-right: The reason they invaded is now the biolabs, despite not mentioning that before invading.
Here’s a jarring chart from Zignal Labs. The “bioweapons” were an English-language (green) conspiracy theory until last week. Now, most posts about it are in Russian (blue). Russia finally found a pretext—well, posttext—for the Ukraine war, a gift from the American far-right. |
