Thread by @Shayan86

NEW: @BenDoBrown, @O_Rob1nson and I have found a network of 1,200 inauthentic pro-China accounts, pages and channels on @Facebook, @Twitter and @YouTube that's been amplifying negative messages about critics of China's handling of the #coronavirus outbreak
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…

We found 1,000 Twitter accounts, 53 Facebook pages - with just under 100,000 combined followers - 61 Facebook accounts, and 187 YouTube channels with a total of around 10,000 subscribers. Despite posting content prolifically, the network is relatively low impact

The accounts criticise the US handling of Covid-19, post negative messages about the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement and specifically target Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese property tycoon in the US who has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government

On Facebook, the network focused strongly on coronavirus and in particular on criticism of the US handling of the outbreak. Some Facebook pages/accounts originally belonged to users from Bangladesh before they were either hijacked or sold and repurposed to post in Chinese

They had multiple personal pictures, listed users from Bangladesh among friends and even exchanged comments in Bengali, before abruptly changing language and identity. A few used Russian/English names, although at times they used a male name alongside a female profile picture

On Twitter, the network would retweet, like and comment on posts to attempt to make them trend, using tags such as #GuoWengui. "Joker1999" has a profile image of TikTok's Josh Richards. while it claims to be a blogger from Russia, it tweets about politics mainly in Chinese

On YouTube, the network focused on videos about coronavirus fatalities in the US, and Mr Guo. Channels uploaded the exact same videos over a short period of time, liked and commented on each other's videos, and created playlists of their content

The operation was closely coordinated, with dozens of accounts posting the same memes/videos in Chinese and English multiple times. Some mixed political messages with softer content: Animal videos, clips of video games, shots of Asian models, and pictures of nature and food

This was an attempt to build large followings while hiding the political nature of the main content. "It looks like the network is trying to generate a high volume of pro-Chinese government content, and then to hide it by surrounding it with spammy content," @benimmo told us

Our favourite quote from @benimmo about the network: "The problem is that this sort of large-scale frontal assault is too crude to convince many people. It is art imitating reality, but badly." Check out engagements for some of the pages via @crowdtangle - Low impact but prolific

The network shares similarities with a resurgent pro-Chinese network spotted by @Graphika_NYC earlier this year, dubbed "Spamouflage Dragon". This is a "persistent threat actor", says @benimmo, but takedowns squeeze the space they have to operate in
graphika.com/reports/return…

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter removed most of the accounts/pages/channels we reported to them. But the network may spring up yet again soon. Many thanks to @FloraCarmichael and @Wanyuan_Song for their reporting, and @mwendling for leading the investigation