.@AlbertYZhang and I spent the last couple of weeks looking into some coordinated inauthentic activity linked to Chinese-speaking actors. Although small and unsophisticated, it has persistently targeted US and Western audiences on US political and racial issues.
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The coordinated activity relies heavily on automation (aka bots in the true sense) across both FB and Twitter. We estimate that a couple hundred Twitter accounts (many of which have been taken down) and unknown but likely small number of FB bots have been involved.
The small size of the activity is itself interesting, because it demonstrates how even small-scale actors can engage in attempted foreign political influence. Even if each little campaign has little impact, many small inauthentic efforts like this can blur the information space.
The activity we looked at primarily involved inauthentically boosing legitimate media and content, including from @nowthisnews @nytimes and others. Topics included the Trump admin, COVID-19 and the #BlackLivesMatter protests.
Trump's personal scandals were a notable focus of the campaign, but it seemed to be more in the context of Trump as leader of the US rather than Trump as a candidate. There was not a clear partisan lean, with bots boosting both Democrat and Republican tweets.
Failures in managing the US's COVID-19 crisis were also a significant focus, including blaming it on the "overflow of freedom" and Americans refusing to wear masks.
Some of it was weirdly specific - here, for example, the COVID-19 diagnosis of Utah Jazz player Donovan Mitchell was worked in to the activity. theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar…
Some of the accounts also replied to tweets from Trump and Pompeo. This part does not appear to have been automated en masse.
Tldr; it's small, it generated very little engagement and probably had little impact, but it highlights how easy it is for small-scale operators to engage in inauthentic political influence. How many efforts like this are out there, and what does that mean for the info space?
You can read the full report here: aspi.org.au/report/covid-1…
