More than a hundred websites operated from within the People’s Republic of China have been posing as local news outlets in 30 countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia, to disseminate pro-Beijing disinformation, The Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity laboratory based at the University of Toronto, Canada, revealed in a February 7 report.
“This is not new. Russia does it, dictatorships in Latin America also did it, only today it’s done more quickly with the internet,” Marcelo Santos, a researcher at the Center for Research in Communication, Literature, and Social Observation at the Diego Portales University in Chile, told Diálogo on March 15. “But now it is more serious because there is a more powerful sounding board. When the news is in a multiplicity of places it draws attention, even if we don’t know the source.”
The Citizen Lab dubbed the Beijing campaign Paperwall, and attributed it to Shenzhen Haimaiyunxiang Media Co, Ltd, also known as Haimai, a China-based public relations firm.
“The campaign is an example of a sprawling influence operation, serving both financial and political interests, and in alignment with Beijing’s geopolitical agenda,” The Citizen Lab said in its research.
The Paperwall websites pose as local news outlets, with names inspired by local references such as Roma Journal in Italy, Eiffel Post in France, BritishFT in the UK, Cordova Press in Spain, and Incheon Focus in South Korea, the report indicated. In Latin America, confirmed news outlets include: La Plata Post and Lujan Expresar in Argentina; Paulo Expressar and Brasil Industry in Brazil, San Rafael Scoop in Chile, Marta Post in Colombia, Iguazu in Ecuador, Xochimilco Life and Teotihuacaneco in Mexico, among others, The Citizen Lab indicated.
“They publish daily content in the target language, generally drawn from legitimate media outlets, as well as articles from Chinese state media such as CGTN and Global Times and commercial press releases,” says Italian news and analysis website Decode39.
Beijing is increasing its aggressive activities in the sphere of influence operations, both on and offline, warns The Citizen Lab. “In the online realm […], Chinese influence operations are shifting their tactics and increasing their volume of activity.”
A common type of politically themed content the research found were direct attacks, usually in English and regardless of target audience, against figures perceived by Beijing as hostile, Decode39 reported. According to The Citizen Lab, Beijing’s attacks and disinformation could be particularly harmful as they happen with much larger amount of benign news and promotional content that lend them credibility.
The Citizen Lab’s analysis comes at a time when China’s increasing use of official and unofficial media to spread its messages around the world faces much wider scrutiny, Newsweek reported. In recent months, social media giants such as Facebook shut down a network of accounts running influence operations from China.
“This assessment, however, as well as the large amount of seemingly benign commercial content wrapping the aggressively political one within the Paperwall network, should not be taken to mean that such a campaign is harmless,” the report noted. “Seeding pieces of disinformation and targeted attacks within much larger amounts of irrelevant or even unpopular content is a known modus operandi in the context of influence operations, which can eventually pay enormous dividends once one of those fragments is eventually picked up and legitimized by mainstream press or political figures.”
In an August 29, 2023 report on adversarial threats, Meta (Facebook parent company) announced the removal of 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 pages, and 15 groups, in addition to 15 Instagram accounts, that engaged from China in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” (i.e., influence operations) and targeted foreign audiences, The New York Times reported.
“This is the largest takedown of a single network that we’ve ever done,” said Ben Nimmo, head of Meta’s Global Threat Security team. “When you add it up to all the activity we’ve dismantled on the internet, we conclude that this is the largest covert campaign we know of today.”
The Chinese campaign is the seventh to be taken down by Meta in the last six years. Four of them were discovered in 2022, the company said, which published details of the new operation.
“Chinese security services appeared to work on the campaign from offices located throughout the country,” The New York Times reported. “Each office apparently worked in shifts, with activity in the mid-morning and early afternoon, with lunch and dinner breaks.”
“It is quite serious that there are coordinated media actions that only fulfill influence operations, as these can go unnoticed by their audiences,” Santos concluded. “For many users, especially those with less education, it can generate at least political polarization, which can have a devastating effect in any country.”