Facebook said Tuesday it has identified a sprawling online propaganda effort: a pro-China campaign that had a presence on more than 50 websites.

The campaign “appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world,” Meta said in a report. The researchers said the broadly coordinated postings of pro-China images, videos, comments and audio files were part of a yearslong operation that researchers had previously dubbed “Spamouflage.”

The findings underscore the potential for internet propaganda campaigns to attempt to exploit internet platforms to influence the U.S. election in 2024. Since 2016, Russia, Iran and to a lesser extent China have all launched covert online efforts to influence U.S. voters.

  • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Propaganda pushers are the absolute fucking bottomfeeders of the lowest lows.

    If your job is purposely, wittingly mislead people, you’re a fucking waste of blood and organs.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      If your job is purposely, wittingly mislead people, you’re a fucking waste of blood and organs.

      Not to in any way minimize the evils of propagandists, as they’re pushing much more damaging messages, but that describes most of the advertising industry. It’s just that those liars and manipulators are doing it for a brand so people waste money rather than a political cause.

      It’s kind of crazy that we just tolerate an entire massive industry that adds nothing to the world and is based around misleading people. And it’s a business run out of fancy glass buildings out in the open rather than hidden away.

      • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s one thing to be paid to extol the virtues of X Y or Z product and entirely another to illegally influence public opinion in another country for political purposes using lies, deceptions, and half truths.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s really not. Both are “lies, deceptions, and half truths” and neither is “illegal”, just unethical. Propaganda is worse because of the goals, not because it’s clearly separate endeavor.

          • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            If you lie in an advertisement, your company is exposed to consumer protection liability

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              What counts as a “lie” in advertising is incredibly narrow and if that’s your bar almost none of the highlighted Chinese propaganda meets it.

              Advertising is an inherently deceptive business. Products aren’t really “#1”, the podcaster or celebrity spokesperson almost certainly doesn’t mean the words they’re speaking, and those claims about “limited lifetime warranties” are intended to imply good lifetime support when the limits are commonly everything that might go wrong after it leaves the assembly line. These lies and deceptions are so routine we think they’re harmless because we’re conditioned to think lying is just a regular part of business and anyone who actually believes an advertisement is a fool.

    • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly, I feel like propaganda at least aims a bit higher than typical marketing. You’re trying for grand aims of state and party, not trying to convince people to stew their livers in Bud instead of Coors.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        What a pathetic attempt at misdirection, not the least because the Great Wall doesn’t appear in either this article or the Facebook report.

      • socsa@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        They aren’t even good at it. Their entire schtick is literally “you are obviously biased because you haven’t read enough Lenin”, like it’s this big gotcha.

      • teft@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Reading the article it seems like the whole operation was super obvious and a bit amateurish. Par for the course.

    • Alteon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, motherfuckers over at lemmygrad are astroturfing HARD. It’s like the Russia/China circlejerk over there. The “greatest socialist experiment of all time”. Smfh.

    • Roboticide@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Lol, right?

      But actually probably not because it’s just taken for granted tankies are here and they actually have to “work” to “infiltrate” places like Facebook and Reddit.

  • Roundcat@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Hey ya’ll, I know some of you are here on lemmy, and I let me just say…

    Ya’ll doing alright? I’ve read recently about a lot of flooding in Hubei and Jingxi provinces, and despite how I may feel about the CCP and all, I want to make sure ya’ll are good.

  • sendmestuff@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Fuck the people whose work is to push government propaganda. Being a prostitute is more honest than that. You are doing humanity a disservice.

    • local_taxi_fix@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The prostitution comparison is completely out of left field. You’re implying that sex workers are dishonest, which I don’t see at all. The proposition of a sex worker is very upfront.

      Lawyer, salesman, CEO, politician, or advertising exec would all be way better examples of dishonest professions.

      • sendmestuff@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        You are all right. My comparison was quite unfortunate. I wanted to compare with something that some ppl tipically think its less honest. But i agree, i think prostitution/sex work is an honest field of work, much more honest than being a banker, politician nowadays.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      What’s at all dishonest about sex work?

      You’re literally showing your client your butthole, no secrets there

  • iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    These headlines… These articles…

    Of course it’s happening. Who didn’t think it was happening.

  • treefrog@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is going to get easier and easier for states to do as AI becomes more common.

  • Faresh@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    1 year ago

    i have recently seen quite a few articles such as these, denouncing pro-china propaganda, but I feel like it is foolish to think that china is any worse in that regard than our own countries (western perspective).

    I feel articles like this one, only foment anti-chinese sentiment, in favour of just another world power.

  • ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    President Xi is so smart and able to think many steps ahead.

    Our leaders in corrupt so called democracies should take note.

    Overall, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear the truth.

    He is truly a once in a lifetime leader.