[vdaea]

I visited one of those sites, https://sevillatimes.com/ , and absolutely none of the articles posted there talk about the city, not even about the country where the city is in. So nobody would think that website is a local news website.

Also this article offers little to no proof that the Chinese government is behind these sites. They look more like a network of crypto spam. https://sevillatimes.com/category/presionesoltar/

[dash2]

I doubt if lots of websites all saying "[Chinese scientist who made allegations about Covid] is a complete rumor maker" are crypto spam. The Chinese government seems like a plausible patron.

[gs17]

It's also very likely that both are paying customers. The article doesn't accuse it of being run by the government directly, they specifically refer to it as a private firm.

[dmonitor]

The strategy would be to post the articles to facebook. Nobody goes to a specific website to see the news anyway. The website just exists to be linked to by facebook and look “legit enough”

[Maken]

I think they are not trying to target Spain but rather some country in Latin America, possibly Colombia. Weird enough, all their news seem to be reposted from a Dominican newspaper but there is no Sevilla there. Maybe they thought it was close enough.