How China's TikTok, Facebook influencers push propaganda

[intrepidity]

1. To what end?

Ah, here we go:

But, intrigued, they engaged in a back-and-forth with the company while feigning interest in the offer. The company representative soon followed up with a new request — that they post a propaganda video that claimed COVID-19 did not originate in China, where the first case was detected, but rather from North American white-tailed deer.

After Tye and Sterzel asked for articles that would back up the false claim, the emails stopped.

Tye and Sterzel say the exchange pulls back the curtain on how China pushes propaganda through influencers who profit from it.

“There’s a very easy formula to become successful,” Sterzel said in an interview. “It’s simply to praise the Chinese government, to praise China and talk about how great China is and how bad the West is.”