This article has been indexed from Threat Research Blog
In June 2019, Mandiant Threat Intelligence first
reported to customers a pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC)
network of hundreds of inauthentic accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and
YouTube, that was at that time primarily focused on discrediting
pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Since then, the broader activity set has rapidly expanded in size and
scope and received widespread public attention following Twitter’s
takedown of related accounts in August
2019. Numerous other researchers have published investigations
into various aspects of this activity set, including Google’s
Threat Analysis Group, Graphika,
the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute, the Stanford
Internet Observatory and the Hoover Institution, and the Centre
for Information Resilience.
Since we began tracking the campaign in mid-2019, we have observed
multiple shifts in its tactics, many of which have been reported on
publicly elsewhere, including the use of artificially generated photos
for account profile pictures and the promotion of a wide variety of
narrative themes related to current events, including multiple
narratives related to the COVID-19 pandemic, narratives critical of
Chinese dissident Guo Wengui and his associates, and narratives
related to domestic U.S. political issues. However, other evolutions
in the network’s activity do not appear to have been reported widely,
and our aim with this blog post is to provide early warning of two
significant developments that we believe are important to monitor
despite the limited impact of the network so far:
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The scope of activity, in terms of languages and platforms used,
is far broader than previously understood.
[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.Read the original article: Pro-PRC Influence Campaign Expands to Dozens of Social Media Platforms,
Websites, and Forums in at Least Seven Languages, Attempted to
Physically Mobilize Protesters in the U.S.