Thread by @benimmo

NEW FIND: remember pro-China network Spamouflage Dragon?

It’s started posting videos in English that focus on U.S. politics, including the election.

It’s still spammy and low-impact, but it’s high-volume and quick to react.

Report here: graphika.com/SpamouflageUS

We exposed Spamouflage last year, when it was posting in Chinese about the Hong Kong protests.

Spamou used fake and hijacked accounts across platforms. High volume, low impact.

We don’t know who’s behind it. It doesn’t look state-of-the-art.
graphika.com/spamouflage

Early this year, the network started pushing pro-China content about coronavirus, in Chinese.

In mid-June, it started running videos in English (bilingual subtitles).

They criticized the U.S. over Covid and race - just as the U.S. was criticizing China over Covid and HK.

Just as before, this content came from spammy assets, primarily on YouTube. Take “Malcolm Daly.” Two movies in English from 2016, then nothing until it started posting in English and Chinese a month ago.

Looks like a repurposed spam account.

Some of the amplification came from accounts with AI-generated profile pictures.

At the moment there’s still a quick spot for these: superimpose them and the eyeballs line up.

But we keep seeing networks try this. We need a serious talk about the impacts of this technology.

The quality of Spamouflage’s videos was pretty low. These accounts posted about the U.S., but some of the (automated) voice-overs couldn’t even pronounce “U.S.” (They called it “us”.)

Not sure what “sinaction” is, either.

The network kicked into really high gear after the U.S. ordered the closure of China’s consulate in Houston…

… and still more when Trump started talking about banning TikTok.

Its reaction time was pretty impressive. After @SecPompeo announced his expansion of the Clean Networks policy, Spamouflage had a video published within 36 hours.

Not quite same-news-cycle stuff, but they’re obviously watching closely and reacting fast.

Ever since mid-June, the network’s been outspokenly anti-Trump, criticizing his response to Covid-19, the George Floyd protests and, of course, relations with China.

In recent days, the election references have got more direct, contrasting Trump’s polls unfavourably with Biden’s.

Bear in mind, this network’s not making any serious effort to look American. (E.g. Chinese-language titles).

This is not the same thing as the Russian IRA, guys.

The network usually started by posting these videos on YouTube, but it did some amplification on Facebook and Twitter.

Even super-spammy networks are cross-platform these days.

As on YouTube, so on Twitter: AI-generated profile pics again.

But ultimately, what we didn't see was real users picking up on this messaging.

All the comments, likes and shares we saw came from other assets in the same network.

Some even used the same words.

This was high-volume and high-speed, but noise ≠ impact.

It's important to keep the pressure on networks like Spamouflage, to make sure they don't get the chance to improve.