Facebook removes hundreds of accounts linked to fake Swiss biologist

In August, the Swiss embassy questioned the identify of Wilson Edwards. Shortly after, Meta took down the fictitious biologist's account. Keystone / Dado Ruvic

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has dismantled a social media operation, orchestrated from China, which used an account of a fictitious Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards to fuel tensions with the United States.

On July 24, an account posing as a Swiss biologist called Wilson Edwards appeared. Ten hours later, the account posted a lengthy text claiming that the US was pressuring World Health Organization scientists to blame China for the origins of the coronavirus. A similar account was also created on Twitter, spreading a similar message.

The comments from the fictitious biologist were widely cited by Chinese state media outlets including CGTN, Shanghai Daily and Global Times. Both inauthentic and real Facebook users amplified the message posted via the Edwards account.

On August 10, the Swiss embassy in Beijing got wind of the news and questioned the existence of such a biologist after finding “no registry of a Swiss citizen with the name ‘Wilson Edwards’ and no academic articles under the name”.

In a tweet, the embassy urged Chinese media outlets to take down any mention of him. Facebook took down the fake biologist’s account shortly after.

‘Hall of mirrors’

An investigation by Meta has now revealed that the operation was connected with employees of Chinese cybersecurity firm Sichuan Silence Information Technology Co. as well as people associated with other Chinese infrastructure companies around the world. The findings of the investigation are detailed in Meta’s Adversarial Threat ReportExternal link published on Wednesday.

This is “the work of a multi-pronged, largely unsuccessful influence operation that originated in China,” writes Meta in the report. “This is the first time we have observed an operation that included a coordinated cluster of state employees to amplify itself in this way,” Meta notes.

According to the investigation, the operation used Virtual Personal Network (VPN) infrastructure to conceal its origin, and to give Edwards a more rounded personality. It also said that his profile photo also appeared to have been generated using machine-learning capabilities.

“It was a hall of mirrors, endlessly reflecting a single fake persona,” Meta noted in a statement.

The social media campaign was aimed at English-speaking target groups in the US and UK, as well as Chinese speakers in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tibet. But Facebook noted that the ultimate reach of the operation was “very limited” and the claims were “quickly debunked by the international community, including the Swiss embassy in Beijing”.

Facebook said on Wednesday that it had removed a total of 524 Facebook accounts, 20 pages, four groups and 86 Instagram accounts after reviewing public reports that centred around the fake Swiss biologist.