31st October 2020 – (Hong Kong) National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) reported yesterday that the US presidential election that a 64-page document about Hunter Biden, the son of the US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, was doing business in China and was involved in fraud, the report even pointed out that the Hong Kong “Apple Daily” was commissioned to write. Hong Kong’s “Apple Daily” and Taiwan’s “Apple Daily” also issued separate statements stating that no one was commissioned to write relevant documents or reports, and NBC requested clarification as soon as possible. Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Digital admitted that his assistant Mark Simon was involved, but Lai said he had no prior knowledge. On the evening of October 30th, Mark Simon admitted to the incident through his personal twitter, that he paid US$10,000 to the writer, and apologised for the incident. Yesterday night, he announced his resignation (Tonight, that is best served by my resignation getting underway).
NBC NEWS reported today one month before a purported leak of files from Hunter Biden’s laptop, a fake “intelligence” document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden’s son and business in China. The document, a 64-page composition that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump, appears to be the work of a fake “intelligence firm” called Typhoon Investigations, according to researchers and public documents.
The author of the article claimed to be Swiss security analyst Martin Aspen. After analysis by experts, it was found that this was a fake identity. The profile picture was made by an artificial intelligence face generator, after searching public records and social media, no such person lived in Switzerland as Aspen. One of the original posters of the document, a blogger and professor named Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of it when asked about it and said Aspen does not exist. Balding claimed to NBC that the document was commissioned by “Apple Daily” in Hong Kong. The report said that the spokesperson of “Apple Daily” confirmed to NBC that it worked with Balding on the document.
