The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.
Edit: The lemmy.world comments are quite something, although that would belong in SRS, not here…
The DOJ complaint named 34 individual officers with China’s Ministry of Public Security and published photographs of them at computers, allegedly working on the disinformation campaign…
A report released by Meta in August illustrates how the posts from the network often align with the workday hours in China. The report described “bursts of activity in the mid-morning and early afternoon, Beijing time, with breaks for lunch and supper, and then a final burst of activity in the evening.”
This is the closest they come to evidence. Photos of people at computers and “it’s 5:00 Beijing time.” Half of their evidence is more consistent with people posting on their own than it is with people clocking into the posting factory. And of course China could never be sophisticated enough to post during American waking hours.
Other posts by the network have referenced how “racism is an indelible shame on American democracy” and how the US committed “cultural genocide against the Indians,” according to a Meta report in August. Another post claimed that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “riddled with scandals.”
This is the closest they come to evidence. Photos of people at computers and “it’s 5:00 Beijing time.” Half of their evidence is more consistent with people posting on their own than it is with people clocking into the posting factory. And of course China could never be sophisticated enough to post during American waking hours.
“Disinformation”