China is behind the largest known covert propaganda operation ever identified on Facebook and Instagram, according to a new report by security researchers at Meta.
Meta on Tuesday outed the authors of a four-year long influence campaign dubbed “Spamouflage Dragon,” which first appeared in 2019 to spread propaganda about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. Since then, the campaign has focused on spreading disinformation about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, attacking dissidents and critics abroad, criticizing the United States, and attempting to sow division during the 2022 midterm elections.
For years, researchers have speculated that the voluminous Spamouflage Dragon posts were connected to the Chinese government but have been unable to publicly prove a link until now. The link comes courtesy of overlapping content found in both Meta’s report and charges filed against Chinese intelligence operatives back in spring.
maybe a short list of people running social media platforms, getting paid under the table
I hope you aren’t implying that the company that released this report linking spam to the Chinese government is actually taking bribes from the Chinese government, because that would just be silly lol.
If you mean other platforms like Reddit and Twitter… maybe, but I still think it’s unlikely. I’m sure it’s a lot cheaper to let accounts be blocked and create new spam accounts than to actually pay off platforms to let those spam accounts exist, especially because moderation on social media platforms has always been a very difficult thing to get right.
i’ll bet a suitcase full of Chinese cash could find someone to help them, wherever they needed it, in any of those operations
Uh, sure, maybe, but my point is why give away suitcases full of cash when you don’t need to
i don’t know… it’s an intelligence operation, they use all vectors that are available and functioning… it’s not a business… i guess we’ll see how comprehensive it’s been…