China is behind the largest known covert propaganda operation ever identified on Facebook and Instagram, according to a new report by security researchers at Meta.
Meta on Tuesday outed the authors of a four-year long influence campaign dubbed “Spamouflage Dragon,” which first appeared in 2019 to spread propaganda about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. Since then, the campaign has focused on spreading disinformation about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, attacking dissidents and critics abroad, criticizing the United States, and attempting to sow division during the 2022 midterm elections.
For years, researchers have speculated that the voluminous Spamouflage Dragon posts were connected to the Chinese government but have been unable to publicly prove a link until now. The link comes courtesy of overlapping content found in both Meta’s report and charges filed against Chinese intelligence operatives back in spring.
So apparently they really suck at it? That’s kind of hilarious
The trolls have demonstrated a weak command of idiomatic English with articles that, while prolific, often misspell key names or use English and Mandarin interchangeably. Other posts — like a critique of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 trip to Taiwan — appear long after the events they purported to preview.
At other times, the spammers attempted to push niche and esoteric Chinese propaganda talking points onto unreceptive audiences by piggybacking on clickable search engine optimized headlines. In one case cited by Meta researchers, Spamouflage Dragon trolls filled the replies of social media forum questions like “How do I lose belly fat through weight lifting?” with propaganda articles about “Chinese Police Strengthening International Law Enforcement Cooperation.”
They don’t mention what the propagandists push about COVID. The usual line from weirdo propagandists is that COVID is a secret bioweapon and was released from the Wuhan labs intentionally. I assume China wouldn’t sign on to that one? Do they just push the scientific consensus, which is that the origin is unknown but is probably natural, and possibly an unintentional lab leak? Or an exaggeration thereof which completely discounts the lab leak theory but still asserts what is most probable – it’s from animals? That’s pretty weak sauce for propaganda. Maybe they push some nuance about COVID that only the Chinese government cares about. Or maybe they go buck wild and say it was developed by NATO biolabs in Ukraine.
Idk if this is propaganda or just some fucking idiot online LMAO
I don’t imagine that the boss of whoever would be responsible for this supposed project would look at the responses and go “yep, looks about right”
It’s not like being bilingual is that rare in intelligence positions in China. The evidence for being state-sponsored is weak.
Since the article didn’t link the report, I have it attached here: https://transparency.fb.com/integrity-reports-q2-2023/
As we always should do with these reports, let’s question the source:
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The lead author is Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow for Atlantic Council. According to testimony, “the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and [others] all have inadequately-disclosed ties to the Department of Defense, the C.I.A., and other intelligence agencies. They work with multiple U.S. government agencies to institutionalize censorship research and advocacy within dozens of other universities and think tanks.” According to this internal CIA memo (accessible via FOIA), Atlantic Council fellows are almost all controlled by various US intelligence agencies and report to the director of the CIA.
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Ben Nimmo’s track record of identifying state-sponsored misinformation is spotty at best. A few years ago, the DFR wrote a hit piece that implicated Ian Shilling (a British retiree) as a Russian bot disinformation account. This led to the takedown of his account by Twitter… Which was rolled back soon after after he went to the news… He was then suspended under X, so go him I guess.
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Looking at the authors, we have Ben Nimmo (discussed above), Mike Torrey (previous NSA and CIA analyst), Margarita Franklin (has conspicuous 3 year gap between her masters graduation and her first job, quickly rising to the role of Director… which could be a coincidence), David Agranovich (ex-DOD, ex-National Security Council), and Margie Milam/Lindsay Hundley/Robert Claim (for all intents and purposes legitimate people focusing on IP and DNS). Given the large number of actual, non-government-affiliated cybersecurity researchers, the prevalence of ex-US intelligence on this report is rather startling.
Overall, there’s a stronger claim for this report being US propaganda (as shown above) than there is for some barely-intelligible sentences that look like they were written literally by idiots being Chinese propaganda… But who knows, maybe they’re both propaganda?
Overall, there’s a stronger claim for this being US propaganda
Why would the US want to cast doubt on their own voting system? Chinese interference or otherwise
It’s copium from whatever of the two parties is less popular at the time.
I’m saying the report is US propaganda, not the disinformation. The US needs a bogeyman, and it can’t be “some idiots in their mom’s basement”
I’ve edited the original post to clarify.
possibility that corporate interest want to cast doubt on the US state?
seems a bit silly to openly, at this point, say that the Chinese were pulling propaganda campaigns in the US before the current election, won by the guy whose platform wasn’t “massive trade war with China”
Red Scare propaganda to manufacture public consent for war with Russia and China
I am really glad you said this, even reading the first half of this I was ready to believe the headline/report to be true.
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What ever happened to those Hong Kong protests? I’m assuming they finally got shut down thanks to covid?
Unfortunately they failed to stop the CCP’s National Security Law and the electoral reform which now ensures only “patriots” can run for office (see wiki synopsis). Hong Kong, in a political sense, is now only nominally separate from China. Such a heart-breaking loss.
You’d think they would at least cite the report from Meta… RollingStone is back at it with their top tier journalism.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Meta on Tuesday outed the authors of a four-year long influence campaign dubbed “Spamouflage Dragon,” which first appeared in 2019 to spread propaganda about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.
Federal prosecutors accused dozens of Chinese Ministry of Public Security officials of being behind a covert social media propaganda campaign in a criminal complaint filed in April.
In one video posted by the trolls, narrators urged viewers “not to vote for someone” and showed footage of January 6 rioters while claiming that “The solution is to root out this ineffective and incapacitated system.”
At other times, the spammers attempted to push niche and esoteric Chinese propaganda talking points onto unreceptive audiences by piggybacking on clickable search engine optimized headlines.
In one case cited by Meta researchers, Spamouflage Dragon trolls filled the replies of social media forum questions like “How do I lose belly fat through weight lifting?” with propaganda articles about “Chinese Police Strengthening International Law Enforcement Cooperation.”
The campaign’s lack of any audience development despite years of operation, dozens of personnel behind it, and thousands of pieces of content leads some to wonder why China even bothers with the trolling effort.
The original article contains 740 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So, almost nothing about “election” save what’s in the excerpt? Clickbaity.
There was so much of this around the “weather balloons” as well.
You mean… People are jerking off by posting stupid bullshit online during work hours? No way!
Must be a state sponsored mission man.
China’s intelligence apparatus isn’t stupid and they do possess basic technologies líke machine translation (which has gotten really good nowadays).
fuck you talkin bout. ain’t no chinese gon figure shit like this comment if they ain’t american, ya feel?
first appeared in 2019 to spread propaganda about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.
I’ve lived in HK; what propaganda was this now?
