How Meta disrupted Chinese propaganda to polarise US voters

Meta has taken down thousands of fake and misleading accounts that the company alleged were part of a China-based influence campaign to spread polarising political content ahead of the 2024 United States presidential election. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp said in a report on Thursday (30 November) that it disabled five China-based networks of fake accounts targeting foreign audiences this year, more than from any other country, reported NBC News. What has Meta’s report revealed? Let’s take a detailed look. Meta’s action against fake accounts Meta eliminated 4,789 fake Facebook accounts that used profile pictures and names copied from other users globally. According to the company’s latest quarterly adversarial threat analysis, these fake accounts posed as Americans and tried to push polarising content about US politics and US-China relations, reported BBC. They lifted posts from X, formerly Twitter, created by politicians, news outlets and others. “The people behind this activity posted in English about US politics and US-China relations. The same accounts would criticise both sides of the US political spectrum by using what appears to be copy-pasted partisan content from people on X,” Al Jazeera quoted Meta as saying. [caption id=“attachment_13455082” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The China-based influence campaign tried to spread polarising content ahead of the 2024 US presidential elections. AP (representational Image)[/caption] As per BBC, the network posted about several topics such as abortion, culture war issues and aid to Ukraine. To appear like normal Facebook accounts, the network would sometimes post about fashion or pets. In some cases, the accounts copied posts from US politicians, including former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Representatives Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, and others. Many of these Facebook accounts had almost identical accounts on X and these accounts still exist, reported NBC News. The posts by these fake accounts did not favour one side or the other but aimed to highlight the deep divisions in US politics, noted New York Times (NYT).  “It’s unclear whether this approach was designed to amplify partisan tensions, build audiences among these politicians’ supporters, or to make the fake accounts sharing authentic content appear more genuine,” Meta reportedly said. The tech giant said it took down the network before it gained traction from real people on Meta’s apps. ALSO READ: Is China using foreign influencers to push propaganda? Targeting India, Tibet As per Associated Press (AP), a smaller network of accounts changed their “American-sounding usernames and profile pictures” to suggest they lived in India. They then started sharing pro-Chinese content about Tibet and India. These accounts posted regional news, sports and culture, and denounced the Dalai Lama. Some spread propaganda against the Indian government, accusing it of corruption while lauding India’s army, athletes and scientific achievements, reported NPR. Who has Meta blamed? Meta has not linked the network of fake accounts to any particular individual or group in China. However, the tech firm noted that China has emerged as the third-biggest geographical source of such networks after Russia and Iran. [caption id=“attachment_13455102” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Meta has not linked these networks to any specific entity in China. AP (Representational Image)[/caption] “For comparison, between 2017 and November 2020, we took down two networks from China, and both mainly focused on the Asia-Pacific region,” the company said in its report, as per NBC News. “This represents the most notable change in the threat landscape, when compared with the 2020 election cycle.” Meta’s warning Facebook’s parent company warned that “foreign threat actors are attempting to reach audiences” before the 2024 US presidential election. Ben Nimmo, who leads investigations into inauthentic behavior on Meta’s platforms, said: “These networks still struggle to build audiences, but they’re a warning. Foreign threat actors are attempting to reach people across the internet ahead of next year’s elections, and we need to remain alert,” reported AP. As per NBC News, Nimo said that his team attributed some influence campaigns to tech firms in China and one to Chinese law enforcement. “If you look at the China-origin influence operations that we’ve taken down and disclosed over the last year and a half, they’re coming from multiple different actors”. Another smaller network discovered by Meta was based in Russia and focused on the Ukraine war and endorsed Telegram channels, reported BBC. According to Meta’s chief investigator, Russia’s disinformation efforts will attempt to influence opinions against Ukraine in the US political arena ahead of the next year’s elections. “This is important ahead of 2024. As the war continues, we should especially expect to see Russian attempts to target election-related debates and candidates that focus on support for Ukraine,” Nimmo was quoted as saying by AP. Meta’s report assumes significance as several countries besides the US, like India, Mexico, Ukraine, Pakistan and Taiwan, will hold general elections next year. Nimmo said that with these upcoming elections, the China influence networks could “pivot” to target discussions of ties with China in those places. “Because we’ve already seen threat actors trying to hijack partisan narratives, we hope that people will try to be deliberate when engaging with political content across the internet,” he said, as per NPR. “For political groups, it’s important to be aware that heightened partisan tensions can play into the hands of foreign threat actors.” With inputs from agencies