China is increasingly targeting down-ballot elections in America, according to a Washington Post analysis and senior U.S. intelligence officials, using fake accounts on social media to spread divisive and sometimes explicitly antisemitic claims and conspiracy theories about politicians — part of an effort to inflame tensions in the country just one month before the 2024 election.
One covert influence operation has focused on Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), who is running to retain his House seat. A China-linked account on X called Moore “a Jewish dog” and claimed he won his primary because of “the bloody Jewish consortium,” among other derogatory tropes, according to a Post analysis of thousands of posts on X, of which about 75 concerned Moore.
Moore, who recently backed new sanctions on Chinese officials, is not Jewish.
The accounts are part of Spamouflage, China’s largest known covert influence operation, which often uses prolific distribution techniques to spread Chinese Communist Party talking points across the internet. Active since at least 2017, the network has posted on more than 40 internet platforms, according to the digital forensics research group Graphika.
💻
Follow Technology
But the recent campaigns illustrate a shift in China’s strategy, as it seeks to actively influence political discourse in the United States. Once focused on promoting positive narratives about the CCP, Chinese propaganda campaigns are increasingly weighing in on local and national elections and posting about hot-button U.S. political issues, such as police violence, Black Lives Matter and immigration, experts said.
We are “seeing this effort [from China] to go viral and drill down into locally relevant issues,” said Kenton Thibaut, a senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “It’s like trying to go from a birdshot approach to a narrowly tailored sniper approach.”
Advertisement
Spamouflage’s tactics have also grown more sophisticated, according to researchers. The operation has become more aggressive ahead of the 2024 election by using highly realistic fake accounts that mimic U.S. citizens, Jack Stubbs, chief intelligence officer at Graphika, said in an interview.
“What we’ve seen now is [an] attempt to create a believable persona that misleads people about who the account is,” he said. “And that has been combined with this increased aggression in terms of the type of content that they’re seeding or amplifying as well.”
The Spamouflage accounts analyzed by The Post are increasingly posting about the Israel-Gaza war, and spread divisive and sometimes hateful rhetoric about Jews on X in July and August, furthering the rise in antisemitic content on social media since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“Shouldn’t we be against the Jews?” an account in the network wrote on July 24, one of more than 230 posts on X from the Spamouflage-linked accounts since July 1 mentioning Jews.
Advertisement
The Post analyzed more than 19,000 posts on X from Spamouflage-linked accounts from Jan. 1, 2023, through Oct. 7, 2024, using data provided by the National Conference on Citizenship, a civic nonprofit organization. The Post identified the accounts from a variety of sources including the U.S. Justice Department, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank.
This year, China has tried to influence “tens” of down-ballot races, using social media accounts and online influencers to spread propaganda, a senior intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a Monday briefing with reporters.
The officials warned that China’s efforts to influence lower-level races appear to be motivated by U.S. support for Taiwan, as the threat of a potential Chinese invasion intensifies.
Advertisement
Foreign propaganda flourished on X after owner Elon Musk drastically cut teams that focus on policy issues and fighting disinformation, The Post has reported. In early or mid-September, a handful of accounts from the network tracked by The Post were removed by X for rules violations, but many more remained up.
“Our Safety team remains alert to any attempt to manipulate the platform by bad actors and networks. We have a robust policy in place to prevent platform spam and manipulation, and we routinely take down accounts engaged in this type of behavior,” said Michael Abboud, an X spokesman.
X suspended the two accounts that posted tweets quoted in this story after The Post requested comment. One of the accounts frequently posted about Moore.
Posts on X from the Spamouflage network grew from less than 60,000 views per week late last year to 300,000 views per week — an increase of five times, according to The Post analysis. By contrast, Musk’s interview with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in August got 275 million views, and many posts on the platform routinely get more views and engagement than the Spamouflage posts.
One covert influence operation has focused on Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), who is running to retain his House seat. A China-linked account on X called Moore “a Jewish dog” and claimed he won his primary because of “the bloody Jewish consortium,” among other derogatory tropes, according to a Post analysis of thousands of posts on X, of which about 75 concerned Moore.
Moore, who recently backed new sanctions on Chinese officials, is not Jewish.
The accounts are part of Spamouflage, China’s largest known covert influence operation, which often uses prolific distribution techniques to spread Chinese Communist Party talking points across the internet. Active since at least 2017, the network has posted on more than 40 internet platforms, according to the digital forensics research group Graphika.
💻
Follow Technology
But the recent campaigns illustrate a shift in China’s strategy, as it seeks to actively influence political discourse in the United States. Once focused on promoting positive narratives about the CCP, Chinese propaganda campaigns are increasingly weighing in on local and national elections and posting about hot-button U.S. political issues, such as police violence, Black Lives Matter and immigration, experts said.
We are “seeing this effort [from China] to go viral and drill down into locally relevant issues,” said Kenton Thibaut, a senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “It’s like trying to go from a birdshot approach to a narrowly tailored sniper approach.”
Advertisement
Spamouflage’s tactics have also grown more sophisticated, according to researchers. The operation has become more aggressive ahead of the 2024 election by using highly realistic fake accounts that mimic U.S. citizens, Jack Stubbs, chief intelligence officer at Graphika, said in an interview.
“What we’ve seen now is [an] attempt to create a believable persona that misleads people about who the account is,” he said. “And that has been combined with this increased aggression in terms of the type of content that they’re seeding or amplifying as well.”
The Spamouflage accounts analyzed by The Post are increasingly posting about the Israel-Gaza war, and spread divisive and sometimes hateful rhetoric about Jews on X in July and August, furthering the rise in antisemitic content on social media since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“Shouldn’t we be against the Jews?” an account in the network wrote on July 24, one of more than 230 posts on X from the Spamouflage-linked accounts since July 1 mentioning Jews.
Advertisement
The Post analyzed more than 19,000 posts on X from Spamouflage-linked accounts from Jan. 1, 2023, through Oct. 7, 2024, using data provided by the National Conference on Citizenship, a civic nonprofit organization. The Post identified the accounts from a variety of sources including the U.S. Justice Department, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank.
This year, China has tried to influence “tens” of down-ballot races, using social media accounts and online influencers to spread propaganda, a senior intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a Monday briefing with reporters.
The officials warned that China’s efforts to influence lower-level races appear to be motivated by U.S. support for Taiwan, as the threat of a potential Chinese invasion intensifies.
Advertisement
Foreign propaganda flourished on X after owner Elon Musk drastically cut teams that focus on policy issues and fighting disinformation, The Post has reported. In early or mid-September, a handful of accounts from the network tracked by The Post were removed by X for rules violations, but many more remained up.
“Our Safety team remains alert to any attempt to manipulate the platform by bad actors and networks. We have a robust policy in place to prevent platform spam and manipulation, and we routinely take down accounts engaged in this type of behavior,” said Michael Abboud, an X spokesman.
X suspended the two accounts that posted tweets quoted in this story after The Post requested comment. One of the accounts frequently posted about Moore.
Posts on X from the Spamouflage network grew from less than 60,000 views per week late last year to 300,000 views per week — an increase of five times, according to The Post analysis. By contrast, Musk’s interview with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in August got 275 million views, and many posts on the platform routinely get more views and engagement than the Spamouflage posts.
