My guess is it's not an organized smear campaign. Rather, it just happens to be a hot topic these days, an easy way to gain some clicks and subscriptions. Kinda like UFOs, government conspiracies, "Elvis Presley Seen Alive" etc., but for a slightly more sophisticated audience.

Why not both? Many routers have had remote access vulnerabilities, but there's a clear reason to write about 2012-era vulns about Huawei and not some other manufacturer.

I work for a telco and it's not about money.

With 5G the architecture is far more sophisticated and wide reaching. Companies are also looking at containerisation to go with it which means that vulnerabilities can do far more damage and stay hidden far longer.

Telcos are very much looking out for the interests of their users because once you're known as not being private and secure your business will be finished.

I believe it's both. I mean there could be some backdoors and there are some vulns portrayed as backdoors but probably the situation is no different for any other manufacturer. But since there is a campaign against Huawei everyone is concentrated on researching and reporting problems with that particular brand while ignoring all the others

If it was true it would be trivial and painless for them to provide proof. They haven't, therefore it's misinformation.

Who would benefit from Huawei being out ? (genuinely curious)