2020年9月，严力强发表爆炸性论文声称中国在其研究实验室中制造出致命的冠状病毒时，约翰·霍普金斯大学，哥伦比亚大学和美国其他一流大学的
科学家以惊人的速度采取了行动。Yan的论文在麻省理工学院出版社（MIT Press）上发表了十天，麻省理工学院是一本专门研究sars-cov-2的新在线期刊，十天后，该论文“毫无根据，并且没有数据支持”。
But in an era when anyone can publish anything online, the speed of response is not enough to stop Yan's controversial accusations from spreading and attracting millions of audiences on social media and Fox News. According to misinformation experts, this is a development that emphasizes that the establishment of systems to promote scientific understanding can be used to widely disseminate political accusations, contrary to scientific consensus.
Yan's research results were published in zenodo, a scientific research database, without review on September 14. With the help of conservative influencers such as Republican strategist Stephen K. Bannon, Yan's research results were published on twitter, youtube and far right websites, and repeatedly boosted. According to a report on media manipulation released by researchers at Harvard University, his online show "war room: the pandemic.". On October 8, Yan elaborated his views and explicitly condemned the Chinese government for developing the new coronavirus into a "biological weapon".
The online research database has become an important forum for revealing and discussing pandemics. They are designed to promote scientific development more flexibly, and they are at the forefront of reporting on the discovery of masks, vaccines, new coronavirus variants and so on. But these sites lack the traditional, much slower, protection inherent in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In these journals, articles can only be published after other scientists have commented on them. Research shows that papers published on online websites can also be manipulated to fuel conspiracy theories.
According to misinformation experts at Harvard University, Yan's paper in zenodo, an open resource library, has been viewed more than one million times, which may make it the most widely read study on the origin of the new coronavirus pandemic, despite a number of severe scientific criticisms and extensive news coverage of its so-called defects. They concluded that online science sites are vulnerable to so-called "hidden science," which attempts to make suspicious work "a representation of scientific legitimacy.".
哈佛大学肯尼迪学校肖恩斯坦中心信息壁垒实验室媒体，政治和公共政策中心研究主任琼·多诺万说：“就滥用在线科学网站的认识而言，他们落后了很多年。”在这一点上，所有公开的东西都将被使用。”
