| | | The Epoch Times is not a credible source. Please take the ant-vax misinformation elsewhere.
The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccine misinformation, [39] and false claims of fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election. [42] In 2020, The New York Times called it a "global-scale misinformation machine". [34] The Epoch Times frequently promotes other Falun Gong-affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun. [24] [43] [34]
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COVID-19 coverage and misinformation
See also: Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic § Wuhan lab origin
The Epoch Times has spread misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic in print and via social media including Facebook and YouTube. [98] [99]
It has promoted anti-CCP rhetoric and conspiracy theories about the pandemic, for example through an eight-page special edition called "How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World", which was distributed unsolicited in April 2020 to mail customers in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. [100] [101]
In the newspaper, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is known as the " CCP virus", [98] [100] [93] and a commentary in the paper posed the question, "is the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan an accident occasioned by weaponizing the virus at that [Wuhan P4 virology] lab?" [98] [100] The paper's editorial board suggested that COVID-19 patients cure themselves by "condemning the CCP" and "maybe a miracle will happen". [71]
In France, "special" French-language print editions of The Epoch Times were distributed in 2021 during anti- Health pass protests. [75] In Germany, The Epoch Times has published articles blasting the legitimacy of PCR tests and promoting conspiracy theories about vaccination mishaps. [22]
The misinformation tracker NewsGuard called the French page of The Epoch Times one of the "super-spreaders" of COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook, citing an Epoch Times article that suggested the virus was artificially created. [102] [103] NewsGuard later changed the rating of the English edition of The Epoch Times from green to red. [31]
A February 17, 2020, Epoch Times story shared a map from the internet that falsely alleged massive sulfur dioxide releases from crematoria during the COVID-19 pandemic in China, speculating that 14,000 bodies may have been burned. [104] A fact check by AFP reported that the map was a NASA forecast taken out of context. [104]
A widely viewed video released by The Epoch Times on April 7, 2020, was flagged by Facebook as "partly false" for "the unsupported hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioengineered virus released from a Wuhan research laboratory." The video featured Judy Mikovits, an anti-vaccination activist. [105] [106] The fact-checker Health Feedback said of the video that "several of its core scientific claims are false and its facts, even when accurate, are often presented in a misleading way." [99]
On April 29, 2020, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) story reported that some Canadians were upset to receive a special edition of The Epoch Times that called COVID-19 the "CCP virus". The CBC later retracted a headline on its story that had quoted a recipient saying the special edition was "racist and inflammatory", and the CBC also retracted a claim that The Epoch Times edition had concluded that COVID-most shared outlet in
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