A report released on Tuesday by social network analysis company Graphika documents a cross-platform influence operation linked to the Chinese government with the aim of influencing online discourse ahead of the November 5 elections.
The operation has relied on “spamouflage” to spread misleading or false information, adopting faux American accounts to sow division through anti-government narratives and posts on divisive topics such as the Israel-Hamas conflict, gun control, and racial inequality.
Using ATLAS, its proprietary platform for real-time intelligence and data analysis, Graphika identified 15 such accounts on X (formerly Twitter) and one on TikTok. Mimicking both U.S. nationals and advocacy groups, these accounts have taken aim at both major political parties and called into question the legitimacy of the U.S. electoral process.
Supporters await the arrival of China’s President Xi Jinping next to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit headquarters on November 14, 2023, in San Francisco, California. Social media analysis group Graphika said in an August 3 report it had uncovered a Chinese state-linked social media operation leveraging fake accounts to influence voters ahead of the November 5 elections.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
They exhibited certain patterns, including the use of U.S.-related hashtags like #American, and presented themselves as U.S. voters who “love America” but feel alienated by issues ranging from abortion to U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.
One X post from June 2023 stated: “Although I am an American, I am extremely opposed to NATO and the behavior of the U.S. government in war. I think soldiers should protect their own country’s people and territory from being violated, and should not initiate wars on their own initiative.” The post was accompanied by an image depicting NATO’s expansion in Europe.
China, while positioning itself as a neutral party, has avoided labeling Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as such and has actively censored anti-war comments on Chinese social media platforms. Beijing has also echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s claim that NATO expansion is responsible for the conflict.
Despite the efforts of these China-linked online actors, Graphika said only one of the accounts had succeeded in garnering much attention within U.S. election-related online communities, racking up 1.5 million views from a video posted in July.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese embassy in the U.S. and the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence via written request for comment.
Graphika’s findings follow an April report by the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which uncovered four Spamouflage accounts impersonating supporters of former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump on X.
Spamouflage strategies have broadened their range of topics, engaging in more diverse geopolitical discussions, and in more languages, on both mainstream and alternative platforms, the report said.
“We assess that Spamouflage and other Chinese IO (influence operation) actors will almost certainly continue their efforts to influence U.S. political conversations throughout the 2024 presidential election cycle, leveraging social divisions in a polarized information environment to portray the U.S. as a declining global power with weak leaders and a failing system of governance,” the authors said.
This report also follows efforts by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, which last year removed thousands of fake accounts tied to a China-based operation aimed at influencing social media users in the U.S. and beyond.
Meta said the content shared by these operations aligned with Beijing’s global interests, though the company did not report a direct connection to the Chinese government. China was the third most common geographic source of foreign coordinated inauthentic behavior covered in the report, after Russia and Iran.
