A Chinese reporter stole a Canadian Youtuber’s clip to push Russia's disinformation about Ukrainian war, but the internet chased him down
Now the reporter says his video was a "joke", after thousands of Chinese hit the internet and exposed what he claimed to be a destroyed HIMARS was actually a burned out Corvette.
A Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propagandist was caught stealing and altering a video clip that belongs to a Canadian Youtuber to promote Russia’s propaganda about the Ukrainian war and smear the U.S. military power, according to multiple sources in the Chinese and English-speaking spheres.
And the process of discovering and debunking this piece of the CCP’s disinformation is a story of the collective work of the Chinese community challenging the Chinese government’s information warfare, checking facts, and spreading the truth back to China via various social media platforms, including behind the Great Firewall.
Chinese reporter claimed Russia had destroyed Ukraine-operated HIMARS
It all started on Sept. 29, 2022, when Lu Yuguang, a Chinese journalist at Phoenix Television, posted a short video on his account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Lu is a verified VIP user on Douyin, where he has 3.499 million followers, and has harvested 46.05 million “Likes”.
In the 1:17 long video, Lu showcased what he claimed are Russian troops’ achievements in Lyman, Ukraine, where a crucial battle was taking place from late September and early October. Lu’s original video has been deleted, but numerous copies have been re-posted all over the internet. From 00:35 to 00:49 of the video, Lu showed the “debris” of a Ukraine-operated HIMARS destroyed by the Russian army, including close-up scenes of burned components of electronic-like devices.
HIMARS, or the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, is one of the most advanced high-tech, lightweight rocket launcher systems providing high agility and maneuverability for long-range precision strikes. Ever since the U.S. started to send HIMARS to Ukraine in June, Russia has repeatedly claimed to have destroyed the U.S.- provided and Ukraine-operated HIMARS systems, but all of them were later found to be false claims, according to Reuters, the Pentagon, and other sources.
If what Lu Yuguang displayed in his video were true, that would be the first HIMARS ever destroyed by Russia, and he would be the first journalist in the world to witness and report this breaking news.
But, Lu’s big scoop didn’t look credible, especially when viewers found the characters of “MADE IN CHINA” printed on one of the burned components (0:42).
According to publicly available sources, HIMARS are manufactured by Lockheed Martin, a U.S. corporation. There seems to be no reliable information thus far that shows the HIMARS components are made in China.
Doubts and criticism started piling up, which resulted in a number of critical pieces on Chinese websites, including a piece headlined, “HIMARS are made in China? Phoenix TV’s Lu Yuguang sparks ridicule among Netizens” on 163.com, one of the largest news portals in mainland China.
Phoenix TV is a partially government-owned network that provides programs in Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and other countries. Lu Yuguang, as Phoenix TV’s correspondent in Moscow, has caused controversies quite a few times since the beginning of the Ukrainian war.
Although China claims itself to be neutral in Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, China’s state media sided with Russia often. Lu Yuguang himself is known to slant his reporting repeatedly in favour of Moscow. He has also pushed Russia’s disinformation such as claims of 1,000+ people held hostage as human shields by Ukrainian militants.
As a former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer, Lu graduated from Moscow State University, majoring in journalism. His reports received multiple awards from the Kremlin, including those on the Chechen war where he reportedly had Russian protection. The British newspaper The Guardian once described Lu as a “Chinese reporter embedded with Russian troops”.
CCP propagandist stole a Canadian’s video to promote Putin’s disinformation against Ukraine and democratic allies
It is a Youtube livestream session that uncovered more dirt in Lu’s HIMARS breaking news deception.
Edgar Lu, aka Sydney Daddy, is a Chinese Australian who runs a Youtube channel with 200K subscribers. On Oct.1, 2022, Sydney Daddy held a livestream session to discuss and mock Lu Yuguang‘s HIMARS news.
When Sydney Daddy and his followers were trying to verify some technical details in the video, one of the fans, Skyblue Aoi, suddenly claimed a part of Lu’s video was actually stolen from a (North) American Youtube channel, “Jump Boost Garage”. Sydney Daddy typed this phrase in the Youtube search box, and immediately found Skyblue Aoi to be correct.
“Jump Boost Garage” is a Youtube channel by Clarence Carter, an Albertan resident who likes to fix cars and record his process to share online.
By comparing frame by frame, people were convinced that a 15-second part of Lu’s HIMARS video, was actually lifted from Carter’s video clip “Burnt Corvette! ” The video was posted online on Sep 22, 2022. Lu’s so-called destroyed HIMARS component is actually a burnt and melted radio that came out of Carter’s 1978 Chevy Corvette that had an engine bay fire. Carter has been working on fixing the car up as well as posting his progress on TikTok and Youtube.
Although Chinese state media is often viewed as unreliable in terms of journalism credibility, stealing video material from a Canadian stranger, and altering it into a completely different story in order to push Putin’s blatant lies against Ukraine and the democratic allies, is a new low.
China has been seen to be distancing itself from Russia in public in the past months, but from time to time it swings to the other side, and its state media is still helping Russia’s disinformation tactics.
After Carter was informed of the incident by Sydney Daddy, he released a new clip “My Video Was Stolen!” on Oct.4. He said his car-fixing project is trying to convert trash into something great, but with his video being taken and used as propaganda for war, it angers and saddens him.
“Karma will come bite you. It always will.” Carter warns Lu in the video.
Attempts to use the “I was joking” excuse? What’s a “CIA mechanic” anyway?
Sydney Daddy’s youtube session that caught Lu’s theft red-handed has harvested more than 110k views so far, but people didn’t stop there. Many overseas Chinese reposted this story to other social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and some of them easily gained tens of thousands of views.
But Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are banned in China, and netizens in China can only access their Chinese equivalents, such as Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin. Chinese overseas therefore edited Lu’s video-theft story into shorter and digestible forms (video clips, photos, texts) and posted them on various platforms inside China.
A number of VIPs in the Chinese community participated in this rally. People are also sending emails and comments to Lu and Phoenix TV demanding answers.
Lu deleted his “HIMARS” video shortly after the release of Sydney Daddy’s youtube session. Although he keeps posting other short videos, he never formally responded to people’s questions regarding Carter’s video. Nor did Phoenix TV.
This Monday (Oct. 9), the Lu-stole-Carter-theme videos were suddenly removed from China’s biggest social media platform, Weibo, before they got millions of views. WeChat seems to be censoring and deleting Lu-and-Cater-related content, but similar posts are still popping up.
On Tuesday (Oct. 10), Lu posted three video clips within three hours on three different platforms.
In the first video, Lu posted captains on the screen, “Look what HIMARS has done to the people in Donbas! There are no military targets! ” After that, it’s a sentence in red, “Personal account has nothing to do with the employer’s platform.”
In the second video, Lu posted a statement in bold characters, “Personal accounts allow jokes to express one’s stance. It has nothing to do with the news outlet one works for. It has nothing to do with journalism. Otherwise, what’s the point of a social media account?”
Lu then seemed to indicate he was trying to walk back his video as a joke.
In the third video, he posted a few lines of phrases in bold fonts. It reads, “CIA mechanic. And 1450$. I’m in Donbas, joking about HIMARS with publicly available videos online. What’s wrong with that? HIMARS.”
“1450” is a Taiwanese slang term, which refers to internet trolls who are paid by political parties or similar organizations.
But what “CIA mechanic” means, and how Canadian citizen Clarence Carter will react after he learns of Lu’s latest response, are still unknown.
Many Chinese netizens do not agree with Lu’s claim that a personal account on social media has nothing to do with the media outlet he’s working for, especially when he’s a verified public personality.
All of Lu’s social media accounts, where he has amassed millions of followers, are verified with his bio, which reads, “Lu Yuguang, a journalist at Phoenix TV. IP address in Ukraine. A Chinese citizen who’s been constantly resident in Moscow since 1994. Retired PLA navy officer. Graduated from Moscow State University and majored in journalism. Having reported on Afghanistan, Chechen, North Caucasian terrorism, Iraq war, Russian-Georgian war, East-Ukrainian war, Beslan school siege, the Syrian war, and the Russia-Ukraine war.”
On the same day, Lu Yuguang’s Weibo was emptied. All of his previous 7034 posts were deleted. His short videos which have been played a total of more than 10 million times are also gone. The only content left on his page is his verified real name with a yellow check, and a short bio, “Media personality. A TV journalist in Russia.”
References:
Lu Yuguang’s Douyin video clip about Russia’s victory in destroying HIMARS
Russia hasn't destroyed any of the devastating HIMARS artillery given Ukraine, US says, contradicting Russia's claims
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-not-destroyed-himars-in-ukraine-despite-claims-pentagon-2022-7
Russian claims of destroying Ukrainian HIMARS false -Pentagon
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-shoigu-says-6-ukrainian-himars-systems-destroyed-interfax-2022-08-02/
战地记者卢宇光爆料的海马斯残骸引网友嘲讽,网友:中国制造https://www.163.com/dy/article/HIMNLENO055300ZL.html
‘I’m on the frontline in Mariupol’: the Chinese reporter embedded with Russian troops
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/16/im-on-the-frontline-in-mariupol-the-chinese-reporter-embedded-with-russian-troops
Jump Boost Garage:My Video Was Stolen!
Chinese media already reported on it:
https://www.toutiao.com/video/7152733018468450849/?app=news_article×tamp=1665384117&wxshare_count=6&tt_from=weixin&utm_source=weixin&utm_medium=toutiao_android&utm_campaign=client_share&share_token=c9eff775-b693-4905-aebc-32f7f26d2395&source=m_redirect
China’s promotion of Russian disinformation indicates where its loyalties lie
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/china/china-russia-disinformation-campaign-ukraine-intl-dst-hnk/index.html
Who is the Chinese TV journalist who reports in favor of the invasion of Ukraine with Russian troops
https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/03/16/who-is-the-chinese-tv-journalist-who-reports-in-favor-of-the-invasion-of-ukraine-with-russian-troops/
爆笑破案😂!直播过程中发现卢宇光造假,盗用美国改装车视频冒充海马斯火箭弹残骸展示!亮点从11:41开始
破防!卢宇光连发三条视频回应造假事件,却自相矛盾。揭露造假的视频在中国一度被封杀却最终放行,他和凤凰卫视可能都有麻烦了
Lu Yuguang’s Douyin account:
https://www.douyin.com/user/MS4wLjABAAAA6zCaxxxPTmhAndNgwtfJ-0KARUduH7G85yvfNhal6rg
Lu Yuguang’s Weibo account
https://weibo.com/2129608791/M9cug5YEQ?layerid=4821929561424812
Great work as always. Funny that “Made in China” sunk this guy as well as Donald Trump’s ties 😂