Leaked documents chronicling the internal affairs of several government agencies have revealed that the Chinese government employs millions of hackers and social engineers to fabricate social media posts to push pro-government agendas. According to the scope of the investigation, researchers estimate that around 488 million posts are fabricated through social media, directly by the Chinese government, on a yearly basis.
Previously, AnonHQ has reported on the disturbing trend of hackers influencing elections, how a single hacker was responsible for influencing the tide of 8 different national elections through an elaborate social media scheme. Then we covered a story about Hillary Clinton hiring an internet army of trolls for $1 million dollars to troll, spam, report and ultimately shut down Bernie Sanders support sites ahead of important primary events. Make no mistake people, the propaganda machine on social media, on behalf of your countries government, is very real – it is not a conspiracy.
It is not terribly surprising then to find out China is no different. According to the report released by Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret Roberts, “the Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2,000,000 people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people.”
According to several researches cited in the study, participants were paid fifty cents per post to make statements that passionately reflected the governments side in contentious political and policy debates. According to the evidence obtained in the leaked documents, researchers “estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 488 million social media comments a year.” To put this in perspective, 1 in every 178 social media posts made in China are propaganda, sponsored by the Chinese Government.
The study then goes on to speak about the tactics used by social engineers to change the course of a discussion. When an issue becomes embroiled in a debate, begins to trend, or negatively reflects the government, rather then engage opponents in debate, social engineers will make highly controversial and/or completely off topic statements. This is done to steer the course of conversation away from the actual topic and distract people who may have strong opinions about a particular issue.
Another common tactic is to make outlandish, over the top conspiracy claims in regards to certain issues – mimicking support for something crazy as if they actually believe what they are saying. Again, this is simply a distraction meant to make certain issues seem “extreme” and therefore dismiss-able by the general public.
These posts are also designed to spread nationalistic pride towards the country of China in general, rather than praise individual political figures. Researchers also note how social engineers tend to group postings in concentrated outbursts at a specific, coordinated points in time rather then spread them out gradually. In this way the spammers can overwhelm/overload the natural course of a conversation, changing the outcome in the direction they favor.
For a specific example, as NPR reported: As deadly riots were unfolding in the western region of Xinjiang in 2013, the researchers say the leaked government emails report a burst of hundreds of fabricated post praising local economic development and the “Chinese Dream – a concept that, encompasses national pride, an improvement of the standard of living and military modernization.”
The Chinese government has received harsh international criticism over their censorship of the internet. As it stands today, in what is dubbed “The Great Firewall of China”, the country blocks the 25 most visited web sites from around the world. The country also banned online video games for a brief time. In statements made to Reuters, Chinese officials said censorship is necessary because “web controls help maintain social stability and national security in the face of threats such as terrorism.”
Sources: NPR, Harvard.edu, Reuters
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