The CIA operation, as Reuters notes, started back in 2019 and was aimed at causing paranoia in the government of Xi Jinping, increasing the amount of negative news related to him.
To do this, CIA agents allegedly created fake social media accounts and spread rumors such as that members of the Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten wealth outside the country. The accounts also criticized Chinese government initiatives and claimed that the program for financing infrastructure projects in other countries was corrupt.
The CIA did not provide comments, so journalists cannot say whether the program is in effect today. It is reported that it was initiated by Donald Trump and extended to the regions of Southeast Asia, Africa and the South Pacific. China's Belt and Road Initiative, which provides grants and loans for infrastructure projects in developing countries in these regions, was one of the targets of the CIA program.
Propaganda by states and the use of bots on social networks is nothing new – Russia has a whole bunch of bot farms that are trying to influence public opinion, both in Ukraine and in the United States. Last year, Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted to creating a group of fake accounts to interfere in the US elections. Also in 2023, Rolling Stone wrote that a fake far-right publication was created in China that promoted fake stories to European social media users. Meanwhile, US politicians seeking to ban TikTok argue that the Chinese government could use the social media platform to spy on or influence users.
DeepSeek – the Chinese equivalent of ChatGPT – removes questions about the events of Tiananmen Square and any queries about Winnie the Pooh
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