Meta halts China effort to meddle in US elections

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Tuesday that it had discovered and taken down what it described as the first targeted Chinese campaign to interfere in U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Unlike the Russian efforts over the last two presidential elections, however, the Chinese campaign appeared limited in scope — and clumsy at times.

The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November 2021, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names of women, according to the company’s report.

The users posed as conservative Americans, promoting gun rights and opposition to abortion, while criticizing President Joe Biden.

By April, they mostly presented themselves as liberals from Florida, Texas and California, opposing guns and promoting reproductive rights. They mangled the English language and drew few followers.

Two Meta officials said they could not definitively attribute the campaign to any group or individuals. Yet the tactics reflected China’s growing efforts to use international social media to promote the Communist Party’s political and diplomatic agenda.

What made the effort unusual was what appeared to be the focus on divisive domestic politics ahead of the midterms.

In previous influence campaigns, China’s propaganda apparatus concentrated more broadly on criticizing U.S. foreign policy, while promoting China’s view of issues like the crackdown on political rights in Hong Kong and the mass repression in Xinjiang, the mostly Muslim region where hundreds of thousands were forced into re-education camps or prisons.