On May 10, NBC reported that the major oil pipeline for which Colonial Pipeline is responsible has been shut down as a result of a cyber attack on the company. In response, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency statement. However, inaccurate news reports claiming that “the U.S. has declared a national emergency” have appeared in a large number of Chinese media outlets, and the topic “U.S. declares national emergency” on Chinese microblogs has reached nearly 300 million readers.
By 11:00 a.m. on May 11, 2021, the topic “U.S. declares national emergency” on Weibo had been read 290 million times and discussed 6,228 times.
On May 10, NBC reported that the major U.S. pipeline for the Clonier Pipeline Transportation Company has been shut down due to a cyber attack on the company. In response, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a “Regional Emergency Declaration” on May 9, relaxing restrictions on fuel transportation for vehicles in 17 eastern and southern states and Washington, D.C., in an effort to ensure The declaration was issued on May 9.
In response, President Joe Biden held a press conference at the White House on May 10 to say that the FBI was involved in the investigation and said, “Last weekend, on my orders, the Department of Transportation issued an emergency order easing restrictions on truckers to allow more fuel to be transported by tanker truck. “
President Biden also said, “The Department of Energy is working directly with Colonial to get the pipeline back to work and back to full capacity as quickly and safely as possible.”
On the same day, DarkSide, the group suspected of carrying out the cyberattack, issued a press release on its website. In the press release, DarkSide stated that their “goal is to make money” without directly mentioning the attack.
On May 10, 2021, President Biden held a press conference at the White House to announce the status of the pipeline shutdown.
Although the U.S. has not declared a “national emergency” until now, many Chinese media, including some official media, have been saying that the U.S. has “declared a national emergency” over the incident since two days ago. But for two days, many Chinese media, including some official media, have been saying that the U.S. has “declared a national emergency” because of this, including China Global Television Network, China News Network, Netease News, People’s Political Consultative Conference Daily, Xinjing News, Xiaoxiang Morning Post, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, etc. Among them, some media added fuel to the fire by saying “President Biden declared a national emergency in the United States”.
On Chinese social media Weibo, the topic of “U.S. declares national emergency” had been read a staggering 290 million times and discussed 6,228 times by press time. Among them, there are some gloating “fifty cents” accounts.
Rumors in the Chinese media claiming that “the U.S. is in a state of national emergency”. (From Baidu and WeChat)
Mr. Zhang, who lives in the eastern United States, is a journalism researcher. He has analyzed the phenomenon of a large number of Chinese media spreading rumors from a professional perspective. Mr. Zhang believes that with the growing radical nationalism in China, the Chinese media will also be more inclined to spread false information that reflects a negative image of the West. At the audience level, the vast majority of audiences within China are more likely to believe news that fits the caliber of the official media because of the monopoly of information channels by the Communist Party,” he said. So releasing news within the country that is more in line with Western caliber and not in line with the caliber of CCTV or People’s Daily is also unappealing at the audience level. So it’s a realistically more prudent option to republish such inaccurate news, whether for the self-published media or the professional media.”
Mr. Zhang also believes that the rumors spread by the Chinese media should be called “disinformation” according to the definition of Western academia. Although the phenomenon of disinformation and falsehoods actually exists in the media in many countries around the world, democracies such as the United States have special fact-checking mechanisms for news. “As for China’s media ecology, one of its major problems lies precisely in the Communist Party’s monopoly on the right to fact-check, to publish and to interpret, and now also to eliminate inaccurate information and to punish those who publish it.”
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