An online analysis published Thursday (Feb. 4) revealed how a pro-China video propaganda network active on major social media platforms has used events such as the storming of Congress and the impeachment of President Trump to produce and disseminate gloating videos that decry “American-style democracy. A recently released analysis found that in the last six months, the network has produced videos that negatively portray the United States in a more offensive tone, while aligning with the official tone of the Chinese Communist Party.
Following the Jan. 6 storming of Congress, the network released several videos that used the event to bash the United States. One of the videos called the congressional storming a “total nakedness in front of the world,” while another called the U.S. a “failed state” that is “permanently damaged.
In a report in The Washington Post on Thursday (Feb. 4), Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at Graphika, the Web analytics firm that authored the report, said the videos’ makers’ greatest capital is the polarization of the United States, or as Nimmo put it, “America’s bad news is their good news. “
The Chinese Web video propaganda machine is called “Spamouflage,” a combination of spam and Camouflage. While the name reflects its spam-like distribution techniques, it is not clear who is behind it.
The videos are narrated in mechanically voiced, frequently grammatically incorrect English, with English and Chinese subtitles. The report found that some of the videos showed that their reach had expanded to countries such as Venezuela and Pakistan, and that some had been viewed thousands of times.
But the spread of these videos has been hampered by clean-up operations on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, with some videos receiving only a few dozen views.
The report found that the tone of the videos was consistent with the official Chinese narrative and that some of the videos’ content was quoted by Chinese diplomatic officials. But the report could not make a determination about the relationship between the videos’ producers and Chinese Communist Party officials.
The analysis found that the propaganda network’s videos were more offensive in tone and had negative images of the United States.
This is Graphika’s fourth analysis of the video propaganda network. The report concludes that the network’s intent is not to interfere in the U.S. election, but rather to match the tone of China’s official propaganda campaign to showcase the rise of China and discredit the United States.
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