A blogpost, claiming that the recent outbreak of the novel Coronavirus was concocted to hide the spread of a bioweapon that was accidentally released near Wuhan's wild animal market, is doing the rounds on social media.
BOOM found that the article, titled, 'Corona Unmasked: Chinese Intelligence Officer Reveals True Magnitude of China's Fake Coronavirus Crisis,' is a work of fiction and could be traced to a Reddit forum called r/NoSleep. Users share fictional horror stories that is often inspired by real events on this forum of the platform.
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BOOM received the article on its WhatsApp helpline number, with users asking for its veracity. Click here for an archive of the article.
The link led us to an article on a conspiracy theory blog called UfoSpotlight. The article appears to be written by a Chinese intelligence officer who claims to reveal the true origins of the current Coronavirus. According to the Wordpress article, the novel Coronavirus is not a virus at all but a bioweapon that was leaked when a Chinese "traitor" tried to sell it to the United States.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
By now you will be familiar with the recent outbreak of 2019-nCoV, also known as NCP, or simply "coronavirus". You will have heard that it originated in Wuhan, an industrial city in China, and that it came from an animal — most likely a bat or a pangolin — that was sold in a wild animal market. You will have been told that it is an influenza-like illness that can in severe cases cause pneumonia, respiratory failure and death.
Finally, you may have heard that although the disease is highly infectious, it is dangerous only to the elderly or to those who have a compromised immune system. The official lethality rate is approximately 2% or so.
All of that is a bunch of lies concocted by the Chinese state with the tacit support of the U.S. deep state and its friends in the European Union, Russia and Australia, and spread by the docile media in all of those countries.
The rest of the article recounts how an elaborate plan by a Chinese researcher, to sell a dangerous bioweapon to the United States, went wrong. The bioweapon was initially made with an intention to subdue the Hong Kong protests. The article further narrates that the bio agent accidentally leaked near the Wuhan wild animal market, as the Chinese authorities supposedly tried to stop the deal from taking place.
Fact Check
BOOM found that the story has no link to reality, and it originated from a subreddit called r/NoSleep - a Reddit forum where people share fictional horror stories often based on real events. A user, named as Wuhanvirusthrowaway published the fictional story in the Reddit forum.
The forum r/NoSleep features guidelines for the users which stated that the plots written in it are works of fiction and does not contain any genuine information. The guidelines of the forum are listed below.
• Readers are to act as though everything is true and treat it as such in the comments.
• No debunking, disbelief, or criticism (constructive or otherwise).
• Do not ask for proof, or tl;dr's/summaries.
• Be respectful to one another.
• Comments must contribute to the discussion.
• Report all comments that violate these rules.
Below is a screenshot of the same.
Furthermore, a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) section also states that the stories listed in the forum are not to be believed to be true. An excerpt from the FAQ reads, "Are the stories here true? Probably not - but while you're in /r/NoSleep, everything is true. Outside of NoSleep, a story may be fact or may be fiction. The important thing is that while you're here, treat everything as though it is a true recount of events."
The stories on r/NoSleep are meant to exaggerate reality to create believable but fictional stories. Therefore such stories may often go viral as real, if they're misinterpreted as such by those who're unaware of the popular Reddit forum.
This was previously fact checked by Snopes.