350 Fake Social Media Accounts Found Pushing Pro-China Propaganda (bbc.com) 44
Slashdot reader Thelasko quotes the BBC: A sprawling network of more than 350 fake social media profiles is pushing pro-China narratives and attempting to discredit those seen as opponents of China's government, according to a new study. The aim is to delegitimise the West and boost China's influence and image overseas, the report by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) suggests...
Some of the accounts — spread across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — use fake AI-generated profile pictures, while others appear to have been hijacked after previously posting in other languages.
There is no concrete evidence that the network is linked to the Chinese government, but according to the CIR, a non-profit group which works to counter disinformation, it resembles pro-China networks previously taken down by Twitter and Facebook. These networks amplified pro-China narratives similar to those promoted by Chinese state representatives and state media. Much of the content shared by the network focuses on the US, and in particular on divisive issues like gun laws and race politics... Some accounts repeatedly deny human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, where experts say China has detained at least a million Muslims against their will, calling the allegations "lies fabricated by the United States and the West".
Some of the accounts — spread across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — use fake AI-generated profile pictures, while others appear to have been hijacked after previously posting in other languages.
There is no concrete evidence that the network is linked to the Chinese government, but according to the CIR, a non-profit group which works to counter disinformation, it resembles pro-China networks previously taken down by Twitter and Facebook. These networks amplified pro-China narratives similar to those promoted by Chinese state representatives and state media. Much of the content shared by the network focuses on the US, and in particular on divisive issues like gun laws and race politics... Some accounts repeatedly deny human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, where experts say China has detained at least a million Muslims against their will, calling the allegations "lies fabricated by the United States and the West".
This few? And this badly camouflaged? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are these people amateurs or what? Come to think of it, these may well be amateurs. I doubt Chinese intelligence/propaganda is this incompetent and inefficient and easy to identify. Probably just some useful idiots at work, as there are for many other countries. We have a lot of pro-xyz "useful-idiot" accounts right here on /.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
OTOH, domestically certain people want to push a sinophobic line to cover up their own political mismanagement (e.g. COVID) by publicly shaming China.
Diplomacy fail 101. Which just makes Xi even crankier.
Re: This few? And this badly camouflaged? (Score:2)
Why are American governmental incompetence and Chinese propaganda efforts targeted at Americans exclusive? It's easy to believe that both exist. In fact, this exclusivity fallacy is a well-known propaganda tactic, i.e., you are not perfect, therefore I cannot be trying to exploit you. This fallacy is true for Chinese/Russian propaganda, victim blaming, etc.
Re:This few? And this badly camouflaged? (Score:4, Interesting)
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You are mistaken. Probably due to limited mental faculties. I will certainly consider the hidden propaganda experts of a known master of this game were active when the effects of possible meddling become obvious (a known idiot being voted for US president, for example) or when detecting them was difficult and they were well camouflaged. Ham-handed efforts, I attribute to useful idiots. This one is ham-handed. The other one you refer to is as well.
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There's probably a high-end propaganda lab and cheaper disposable lower-end labs. The lower-end ones are more likely to get caught.
Re:This few? And this badly camouflaged? (Score:5, Interesting)
And the fact that Western Corps. are considering abandoning China (at least temporarily) due to shipping issues
And even the US and EU governments are getting wise to China's tactics.
Maybe the Chinese Communist Party is getting desperate. Desperate enough to hire anyone with a keyboard.
I think that the CCP is in a position where they must keep the economic ball rolling or the 99% of the country who aren't in the CCP are going to rise up and "Cultural Revolution" the CCP.
The CCP has created a rising middle class. Now the CCP must keep the middle class happy or they risk loosing everything.
I believe that the CCP's recent corporate crackdowns are a desperate move. I also believe that it is to little to late. It's to bad that Western authorities are to blind/stupis/greedy to take advantage of the situation.
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Maybe it's a pilot scheme, just a test to see what works.
If you look at other big propaganda networks like the ones supporting GOPs or Russia or the UK Conservatives they tend to be unsophisticated but massive, in the order of 10s of thousands of accounts, sometimes hundreds of thousands.
They are usually lazy and thus easy to spot. For example now you can generate an infinite supply of original faces for account portraits using a GAN, and they do that but often end up re-using the same pictures several time
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These are the ones you should find.
This is why my Cyberpunk character carries 2 guns into a no-gun zone. So they can find one and be happy they found one.
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Well, maybe. Sun Tzu says "although competent, appear incompetent". Maybe that is the motivation.
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In order to survive in an environment in which the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, it is necessary to be a complete (and compleat) sycophant. This leaves little room for independent thought, which is necessary for creativity — a critical part of the problem-solving process. Competence takes a back seat to conformity.
In the same way that the NSA cannot attract America's best and brightest, nor can the fifty cent army. When you make quality job none, you get poor results.
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Maybe. But this would be a permissible outlet for creativity: Doing damage to the enemy.
Not noteworthy nor newsworthy. (Score:2, Insightful)
You can social media accounts advocating anything and everything, and these the article admits are not even known to be affiliated with Chinese government. So what? For any government, there are pro and anti accounts, this is a bunch of nothing.
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Millions of fake social media accounts were recently detected pushing the lie that Trump is still the President.
Actually I spoke too soon. On closer examination it's tens of millions. And they are all real....
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Irrelevant to topic.
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Three types of people that make claims like this:
1) People that put links to back up what they say.
2) Propagandists against NYT
3) People that do not realize everyone else is ignoring them because they sound like incompetent propagandists.
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Enjoy reading about how your "trusted news sources" have been taken over.
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Yeah but your link disagrees with my Commie political standards therefore it's a bad link and I get to discredit everything you say. I get to win the argument. Go China. Go NYT.
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That's private newspapers being bribed, not the US gov't. You are changing the topic.
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That would be the same NYT that won a Pulitzer Prize for its work in covering up Stalin's genocides? That NYT?
Re:You must be kidding (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com] <--- stupid idea in question.
https://www.business-standard.... [business-standard.com] <--- ads
But what they're really thinking about is probably pieces like this: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/1... [cnn.com]
https://www.newyorker.com/maga... [newyorker.com]
which is CNN and the New Yorker. So, not saying the guy's right, but there's a kernel of truth there.
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How about this buffon, makes the story look totally and utterly ridiculous. 1,411,778,724 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] population of China. 1% are good at english https://www.chinahighlights.co... [chinahighlights.com]. Message goes out on Chinese social media, join this website, voice your pro china op union. wowie zowie 1,444,778 users all pro china, Chinese who can read and write english readily, earning social media points.
350, BBC ass clowns. China people, they can do millions with real users, why would they fake, wh
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Give an example or I will turn your pets into soup.
Don't you mean (Score:1)
That's not the problem (Score:4, Funny)
Someone on twitter is pushing pro-KPOP propaganda on a zillion accounts and they are often trending.
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BTS infiltrated McDonald's even.
Pub (Score:2)
Really? In the past I normally found them on PUBG saying "China Number One" over and over.
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Hey, even official propagandist shills need some downtime.
Fake study says Facebook posts are fake (Score:2, Insightful)
Should've called them an "influencer army". (Score:1)
Then, apparently, it's all fine and dandy:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
(Note that I dislike vaccine misinformation too. It's just that two wrongs don't make one right. And this is an example only. The NSA/CIA will have whole departments for this, just like the Chinese. And no, they aren't the good guys either. There are no good guys.)
Sprawling network? (Score:2)
A literal few dozen people can handle that many accounts, especially if they are not expected to create high quality content. And if it becomes relevant they can always sit one of the one or two genuinely competent people they have down with the profile in question to produce some more useful material.
How many of those are on Slashdot? (Score:2)
Only 350? (Score:2)
Meh. More surprised that this is on /. (Score:1)