University of Kwazulu-Natal

Chinese Linked Online Network Is Stoking U S Political Axios

Bonisiwe Shabane
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chinese linked online network is stoking u s political axios

FILE - A woman walks with her ballot to a vacant voting booth at City Hall in San Francisco, March 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File) FILE - The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., on March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — When he first emerged on social media, the user known as Harlan claimed to be a New Yorker and an Army veteran who supported Donald Trump for president.

Harlan said he was 29, and his profile picture showed a smiling, handsome young man. A few months later, Harlan underwent a transformation. Now, he claimed to be 31 and from Florida. New research into Chinese disinformation networks targeting American voters shows Harlan’s claims were as fictitious as his profile picture, which analysts think was created using artificial intelligence. WASHINGTON — When he first emerged on social media, the user known as Harlan claimed to be a New Yorker and an Army veteran who supported Donald Trump for president. Harlan said he was 29, and his profile picture showed a smiling, handsome young man.

A few months later, Harlan underwent a transformation. Now, he claimed to be 31 and from Florida. New research into Chinese disinformation networks targeting American voters shows Harlan’s claims were as fictitious as his profile picture, which analysts think was created using artificial intelligence. As voters prepare to cast their ballots this fall, China has been making its own plans, cultivating networks of fake social media users designed to mimic Americans. Whoever or wherever he really is, Harlan is a small part of a larger effort by U.S. adversaries to use social media to influence and upend America’s political debate.

FBI Director Christopher Wray says the U.S. expects to confront complex and fast-moving threats to American elections this year. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government of China interfered in the 2024 United States elections through propaganda and disinformation campaigns, primarily linked to its Spamouflage influence operation.[1] Cyberespionage and wire-tapping operations were launched... politicians by Salt Typhoon, an advanced persistent threat group linked to the Ministry of State Security. The efforts came amidst other foreign interference in the 2024 United States elections. In March 2021, the National Intelligence Council released a report that said the Chinese government "considered but did not deploy" influence efforts in 2020.[2] A declassified U.S.

intelligence assessment in 2023 said with "high confidence" that China, Russia, Iran and Cuba attempted to influence the 2022 midterms. It said that China had tacitly approved "efforts to try to influence a handful of midterm races involving members of both US political parties" and "portray the US democratic model as chaotic, ineffective, and... The assessment said that China had used images generated by artificial intelligence to mimic Americans online and provoke discussion on divisive social issues, and that they believed they would face less scrutiny during the... retaliation would be lower.[3] It also said that since 2020, senior Chinese intelligence officials had issued directives to "intensify efforts to influence US policy and public opinion in China's favor" and "magnify US societal... infrastructure in the transportation and maritime sectors.[5] During APEC United States 2023, Joe Biden and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping met in a separate summit on November 15 where Xi told Biden that China would not interfere...

This assurance was given again by director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi to Biden's national security advisor Jake Sullivan on the weekend of January 26-27 during a meeting... CNN reported in January 2024 that the topic had repeatedly come up during senior-level meetings between the two nations which were held following a shootdown of a Chinese spy balloon by the U.S. military after it traversed the continental United States in February 2023.[4] U.S. intelligence agencies have described Chinese government interference in the elections as aggressive but overall cautious and nuanced, not targeting any particular candidate, but instead focusing on issues important to Beijing such as Taiwan, and... in general."[1][6] However, China has specifically denigrated President Biden using fake accounts.[7] According to The Washington Post, a senior official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said China is "not attempting...

As early as April 1, 2024, The New York Times reported that the Chinese government had created fake pro-Trump accounts on social media "promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead... When he first emerged on social media, the user known as Harlan claimed to be a New Yorker and an Army veteran who supported Donald Trump for president. Harlan said he was 29, and his profile picture showed a smiling, handsome young man. A few months later, Harlan underwent a transformation. Now, he claimed to be 31 and from Florida. New research into Chinese disinformation networks targeting American voters shows Harlan's claims were as fictitious as his profile picture, which analysts think was created using artificial intelligence.

As voters prepare to cast their ballots this fall, China has been making its own plans, cultivating networks of fake social media users designed to mimic Americans. Whoever or wherever he really is, Harlan is a small part of a larger effort by U.S. adversaries to use social media to influence and upend America's political debate. The account was traced back to Spamouflage, a Chinese disinformation group, by analysts at Graphika, a New York-based firm that tracks online networks. Known to online researchers for several years, Spamouflage earned its moniker through its habit of spreading large amounts of seemingly unrelated content alongside disinformation. A long-running Chinese influence operation is posing as American voters on social media in an attempt to exacerbate social divisions ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a new report from the research...

The push by the campaign known as “Spamouflage” includes accounts claiming to be American voters and U.S. soldiers. They posted about hot-button topics including reproductive rights, homelessness, U.S. support for Ukraine, and American policy toward Israel. They criticized President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as well as former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and sometimes used artificial intelligence tools to create content. The group of fake accounts Graphika identified is small — 15 accounts on X (formerly known as Twitter), one on TikTok, as well as a persona impersonating a U.S.

news outlet across platforms. They claimed to be U.S. citizens or U.S.-focused activists “frustrated by American politics and the West,” the report said. With the exception of one TikTok video, they didn’t gain much traction with real users online. Still, the activity underscores how China is “engaging in these more advanced deceptive behaviors and directly targeting these organic but hyper-sensitive social rifts” as part of a broader effort “to portray the U.S. as this declining global power with weak political leadership and a failing system of governance,” said Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s chief intelligence officer.

The U.S. intelligence community said in its most recent election security update in late July that China’s influence operations “are using social media to sow divisions in the United States and portray democracies as chaotic.”

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