Graphika, an independent U.S. social media research firm, has released a report indicating that millions of fake social media accounts are systematically and organizationally speaking up for the Chinese Communist Party and going even further to criticize and undermine U.S. anti-Epidemic efforts. The report named Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, several Chinese ambassadors abroad, Hong Kong New People’s Party member Chen Zhihao, and online media outlet “Hong Kong People Speak Out” as being involved in spamming. The agency that issued the report concluded that there was behind-the-scenes organization and funding for the activities, but could not identify the mastermind.
The report noted that the fake account network emerged as early as 2018; in 2019, the main focus was on attacking Hong Kong’s “anti-China” protest movement; and in 2020, after the global outbreak of the new coronary pneumonia (CCP virus) epidemic, the focus of these online activities changed to speaking up for the CCP. The report said that as early as February last year, social media accounts praised the Chinese Communist Party for its quick response to the epidemic, and in June, the Chinese Communist Party’s online army attacked the U.S. for failing to control the epidemic.
The report noted that the videos were mostly cobbled together from news footage and were full of bias and even contained a lot of false information. For example, the report noted that one of the fake videos, titled “Vaccines will not get America out of this mess,” accused Pfizer and BioNTech of developing a new pneumonia vaccine with “questionable safety” without evidence, and suggested that U.S. authorities were disregarding the safety of the vaccine. The video accuses Pfizer and BioNTech of “questionable safety” of the new crown pneumonia vaccine, and implies that the U.S. authorities approved the vaccine urgently despite the safety of the public.
The report points out that this kind of fake information has been released by many netizens, online media, and even Chinese diplomats, and spread around the world. The report named the YouTube channel of Hong Kong New People’s Party community director Chan Chi Ho, “Chan Chi Ho Info Channel,” and Hong Kong’s pro-establishment online media, “Hong Kong People Speak Out,” for their role in spreading fake information.
The report also mentioned that tens of thousands of fake social media accounts have been purchased on a large scale since 2018 and used to mislead the public. In 2020 alone, YouTube has deleted more than 20,000 fake accounts, Twitter twice in August 2019 and last June to “fight fake”, Graphika also in September 2019 to cooperate with Facebook to identify and delete fake accounts. The report points out that the other side’s tactics have also continued to “evolve”, with the online activities of fake accounts increasingly resembling real people from mid-2020 onwards.
The report singled out a Twitter account with the handle “He Jingrun,” saying it had been inactive since it was registered in 2009, but in January 2020 it suddenly began to repost the above-mentioned pro-communist videos and even interact with political figures online, and its posts were even retweeted by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. Reports indicate that the Chinese ambassadors to Iran, the Dominican Republic, France and Panama have all reposted and interacted with the fake accounts. The “He Jingrun” account has now been shut down by Twitter.
Graphika researcher Ben Nimmo pointed out that although the activities of these fake accounts have apparently evolved, but there are still a lot of vulnerabilities, such as inactive for a long Time in the past, and some fake accounts used to use such as Bengali, but suddenly switched to Chinese in recent years; fake accounts will upload a certain spam fake information video at the same time, are all traceable.
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