Remote control risks? - Chinese False Information on Lebanon’s Pager and Walkie-Talkie Explosions

Mourners carry the coffins of Hezbollah members Fadel Abbas Bazzi and Ahmad Ali Hassan, after hand-held radios and pagers used by armed group Hezbollah detonated across Lebanon, during their funeral in Ghobeiry, Beirut southern suburbs, Lebanon September 19, 2024. (REUTERS/Emilie Madi/ Top Image)

By Wei-Ping Li, Ph.D.

The pager and walkie-talkie explosions that occurred in Lebanon on September 17 and 18 resulted in serious casualties and shocked the world. False information quickly circulated over social media among Chinese language users. Some pieces inaccurately presented "the messy scenes of the explosions," while others fueled concerns about electronic devices manufactured by Taiwanese and Western corporations, including iPhones. For Chinese nationalists, the explosions provided an opportunity to justify the concerns about Western products and demonstrate that only Chinese-made electronic equipment can provide consumer safety. 

The evidence suggests that Israel was responsible for the explosions. However, it remained unclear how Israel took advantage of the supply chains to implant explosives in the pagers and walkie-talkies. While the walkie-talkies appeared to be discontinued devices of the Japanese company ICOM, the pagers are consistent with a model that used the trademark of the Taiwanese business Gold Apollo. Gold Apollo had stated that BAC Consulting, a Hungarian company, was the actual manufacturer of the pagers. 

Although the incidents are still being investigated, false claims have circulated rapidly among Chinese-language users. Several themes emerged from the Chinese disinformation pieces:

1. The scenes that falsely depicted the explosions;

2. The incorrect allegation that Taiwan, Israel, Japan, and the United States were part of a conspiracy network;

3. Concerns that iPhones could also explode; and

4. The claim that wealthy Middle Eastern countries have quickly abandoned Western-made electronic devices in favor of Chinese products, particularly those made by Huawei.

False narrative 1: The scene of the explosions

Following the explosions, a photo of a broken toilet appeared on X with the caption, "Some Hezbollah operative blew up while taking a dump." This photograph was also shared in Chinese by X accounts, which included more versions of what happened to the toilet during the explosion. For example, one claimed that "journalists witnessed militants remove batteries out of the radios frantically and throw them into trash cans and toilets."

The TFC and several fact-checking organizations have found the claims to be inaccurate. Actually, the scene depicted in the photo was a bombing incident that happened in January 2020, which destroyed a public toilet in a park restroom in Hong Kong. 

A screenshot of an X post falsely asserting that "journalists witnessed militants remove batteries out of the radios like crazy and threw them into trash cans and toilets."

False narrative 2: The allegation that Taiwan, Israel, Japan, and the United States colluded to commit terrorism

Soon after it was revealed that the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo was associated with the explosions, posts in Chinese on Weibo and X began claiming that the pagers were designed to be bombs from the start. Furthermore, some went on to say that Gold Apollo appeared to have been involved in the scheme from the beginning, as the Taiwanese company made room in the pagers for explosives.

The posts also asserted that "the United States, Israel, Taiwan, and Japan were on the same team. They conspired to commit terrorism." The hashtag "#Lebanon's deadly BP [author’s note: BP means beepers or pagers] was modified during production [#黎巴嫩夺命BP机生产时就被改造了]" was used to promote these posts. Several social media accounts even claimed that Gold Apollo was a provider to Western intelligence agencies. 

A screenshot of a Weibo post claiming that Taiwan, Israel, Japan, and the United States colluded to commit terrorism

A couple of Weibo posts, although not identifying Taiwan or Japan as part of the "terrorism group colluding with the US," stated that the US was aware of the strategy prior to the explosions. These articles alleged that the American University Hospital in Beirut replaced all nurses' and doctors' pagers about ten days before the explosion due to "technical issues." As proof, the posts included a picture of an announcement that the new system would go online on August 29.

This false claim was also disseminated in English and other languages on X shortly after the explosion on September 17th. The American University Hospital promptly responded to the false accusation, explaining that the paging system was updated in April and upgraded in August, with the goal of improving communication and having nothing to do with the recent attacks.

False narrative 3: The worry that Western electronic devices would be compromised

However, the assertions that the US might have a role in the pager and walkie-talkie attacks align with long-standing narratives in conspiracy theories having spread throughout China and many authoritarian regimes. The main narrative of these conspiracy theories is that Western countries, especially the US, have conspired evil plans against them. The same mentality was evident in the false information that claimed the US could turn iPhones into weapons. 

Since the pagers exploded on September 17, posts emerged on social media in multiple languages, asserting that iPhones also blew up. Some of the posts showed photos of broken iPhones or videos of things exploding in a store, indicating that "iPhones are exploding in Lebanon." The truth is that the incidents in the images were unrelated to the September explosions in Lebanon. For example, one false image of the broken iPhone was from an incident in Egypt in 2021 when an iPhone owner was charging the phone. 

Still, false information about iPhone explosions was propagated on Chinese social media sites such as Weibo and Douyin and caused widespread worries among users. Two of the most shared claims were "iPhones have a built-in self-explosion function" and "iPhones can be remotely triggered to become a bomb." Video footage circulating on Douyin and X showed people taking iPhones apart to look for suspicious components or conducting experiments to demonstrate iPhones may be "remotely detonated." One claim, which was also spread in various languages by X accounts, used an old video produced by a now-defunct organization called The Geek Group to show how iPhones could be "remotely induced to explode." However, this old video was originally created to demonstrate a science experiment on an electric capacitator. The current widespread false claim about iPhones took this old video out of context and incorrectly used it as evidence that iPhones were engineered to be remotely exploded. 

This false claim that iPhones can be remotely detonated to explode also leveraged an X post by American NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden posted after the pager explosion in Lebanon. In his comment, Snowden hypothesized that "If it were iPhones that were leaving the factory with explosives inside, the media would be a hell of a lot faster to cotton on to what a horrific precedent has been set today." A video posted on TikTok exaggerated this statement, asserting that "Snowden said the iPhone has a backdoor by which the phone can be remotely controlled to cause explosions." This false video also included several irrelevant clips from other documentaries and Snowden's earlier interviews. Certainly, the original content and the narratives in the video clips are unrelated to the 2024 Lebanon explosions.

A screenshot of a TikTok video spreading the message that Snowden revealed the facts that there is a backdoor in iPhones, which could be remotely controlled to cause explosions. This video uses old clips of interviews with Snowden from other media. The subtitles and the content in this edited video are unrelated to the original interviews.  

Interestingly, posts and videos in Chinese appeared to "debunk the iPhone rumor." Nevertheless, some debunking pieces still emphasized that iPhones had a "remote detonation" feature, but "Apple has assured users that this function will only be activated during wartime [emphasis added by the author]." Posts like this continued to perpetuate inaccurate information about iPhone safety. 

False narrative 4: Middle Eastern customers rushed to buy Huawei phones

On the other hand, the notion that iPhones were unsafe presented an excellent chance for Chinese nationalists to praise the safety and quality of phones manufactured by the Chinese brand Huawei, encouraging Chinese consumers to switch to domestic manufacturers. Influencers, bloggers, and even Taiwanese TV pro-China news talk shows promoted the narrative that following the Lebanon explosions, Middle Eastern royals and wealthy individuals were concerned about iPhones and raced to buy Huawei phones. 

A screenshot of a Douyin video claiming, "After the explosion of pagers in Lebanon, rich people of Middle Eastern countries have come to China one after another to purchase phones made by Huawei."

As the disinformation about iPhones went rampant in China, Chinese state media, which often strategically chose their subjects to debunk, came to dispel the iPhone rumor that unsettled the Chinese public. The Global Times's official social media account "Honest Brother [耿直哥]" released a video to fact-check the claim that iPhones could be remotely detonated and assured viewers that iPhones sold to the Chinese public in "normal ways" should have gone through rigorous reviews to obtain the Chinese government’s sale permissions. 

This misleading information regarding the Lebanon explosions is an intriguing case study of how Chinese social media influencers and state media exploit major incidents, social mentalities, and government attitudes to achieve their goals.

As former Chinese journalist Chang Ping commented, not all rumors in China are sophisticatedly organized and propagated by the government. After all, unforeseen events happen often. Before the government intervenes, the media, influencers, and even ordinary people can promptly evaluate subtle cues from the social milieu and the government’s overall attitude to decide on how to take advantage of the events. Furthermore, when crafting online posts, the media and influencers would also consider internet traffic and financial gains, just as their counterparts in democratic countries do. 

In this case, before online rumors reached the redline drawn by the government, influencers quickly promoted the shocking rumors about the iPhone's "remote detonate system" to attract concerned citizens and nationalists, while the Global Times competed for the attention from large audiences who were interested in verifying the information. It was predictable that taking on the iPhone issue would generate a lot of online traffic for those who jumped fast on the rumor bandwagon. Anyhow, the brouhaha has satisfied audiences looking for excitement in conspiracy theories, patriots seeking to demonstrate the superiority of Chinese products, and media outlets eager to profit. 

Wei-Ping Li is a research fellow at the Taiwan FactCheck Center. 

Rogge Chen (fact-checker at the Taiwan FactCheck Center) contributed to this analysis.