Niocorp Developments Ltd (NB)

[douginil]

China may be a good Bond villain, but rare earths experts are skeptical it’s behind smear campaign

June 30, 2022

In this video, InvestorIntel panelists rare earths experts Jack Lifton, Tracy Weslosky and Christopher Ecclestone express their skepticism at a report released yesterday that alleges a co-ordinated social media campaign out of China targeted the Australian rare earths mining company, Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. (ASX: LYC), with tweets and Facebook posts criticizing its alleged environmental record and calling for protests of its planned rare earths processing facility in Texas.

While the story has been picked up by mainstream and industry media, a deeper dive makes it look increasingly unlikely that this “campaign” was, as claimed, part of a Chinese effort to undermine foreign attempts to develop a rare earths processing capability outside of China and maintain China’s current dominance. While China makes a good James Bond villain in western politics and the popular press, a look at the evidence doesn’t necessarily point in their direction as the main movers in this case. For people familiar with online campaigns, this one attributed to China’s influence campaign known as DRAGONBRIDGE seems particularly weak and unfocused. The campaign and its associated hashtags never trended on Twitter, which is unfortunately all too easy to do with modern botfarms and technology.

For the video link go to:
https://investorintel.com/markets/technology-metals/technology-metals-intel/china-may-be-a-good-bond-villain-but-rare-earths-experts-are-skeptical-its-behind-smear-campaign/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=china-may-be-a-good-bond-villain-but-rare-earths-experts-are-skeptical-its-behind-smear-campaign