Facebook Unleashes China’s Tactics to Rule the World
Facebook has revealed the tactics used by China to dominate the world. This information opens our eyes to the country’s efforts to influence public opinion through social media platforms. According to the report, only Russia and Iran are ranked above China in terms of coordinated campaigns of unauthentic behavior (CIB). This behavior usually involves the use of fake accounts and other methods intended to manipulate public debate for strategic purposes.
Meta says it found three CIB networks in the third quarter, two from China tactics and one from Russia. One of the Chinese CIB networks was discovered while undertaking a major operation that required Meta to delete 4,780 Facebook accounts. The people behind this activity use the usual fake accounts with profile pictures and names copied from elsewhere on the internet to post and make friends with people from all over the world, Meta said about the Chinese network, quoted by CNBC International on Friday (1/12/2023).
Information on Facebook emerged as a major problem ahead of the US election last year. At the time, foreign actors, mainly from Russia, were able to spread sentiment on the site, especially with the aim of supporting Donald Trump’s nomination. Since then, Facebook has been under stricter surveillance to monitor threats and disinformation campaigns as well as to provide greater transparency to the public. In August, Meta deleted a Chinese-related disinformation campaign, reaching 7,700 Facebook accounts linked to the CIB network.
One trend Meta noticed about the CIB campaign is the increasing use of various online platforms like Medium, Reddit, and Quora, compared to criminals centralizing their activities and coordination in one place. The company says the emergence of generative AI creates additional challenges in terms of the spread of disinformation. But so far, it hasn’t seen any evidence that AI technology was used to make a hacking claim.