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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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CCP Is Impersonating Americans to Influence 2024 Elections

Bama Diva
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CCP Is Impersonating Americans to Influence 2024 Elections Empty CCP Is Impersonating Americans to Influence 2024 Elections

Post by Bama Diva Today at 7:36 am

[size=60]CCP Is Impersonating Americans to Influence 2024 Elections[/size]

China is deploying thousands of fake social media profiles to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.



October 17, 2024Updated:October 18, 2024




Harlan Report appeared to be a startup news program like many others. Its bio on TikTok promised to make American media great again.
“No opinions, just facts,” it said.




Like so many insurgent media profiles, the videos posted by Harlan seemed genuinely aimed at exposing government corruption and pushing back against an otherwise left-wing-dominated mediascape.




That much was clear when a video Harlan shared went viral, earning more than 1.5 million views. It claimed to show President Joe Biden making a sexual remark at the annual NATO Summit in Washington.




But something was off.




The transcript used in the video was wrong, and Biden never said what was claimed.
There were also other red flags.




The owner of the Harlan Report account originally claimed to be a U.S. military veteran who had lost faith in Biden. Soon after, they claimed to be a 29-year-old Trump supporter in New York. Months later, they claimed to be a 31-year-old Republican social media influencer from Florida.




Then, the account’s handle was later changed to “Harlan_RNC,” insinuating an official link to the Republican Party.




But Harlan was neither a legitimate news source nor run by an American citizen.




According to the findings of a report released last month by Graphika, a social network analysis company, Harlan Report was one of thousands of accounts linked to the world’s largest online influence operation.




That operation, dubbed “Spamouflage,” is a state-backed campaign from communist China with links to Chinese law enforcement.




Unlike the Harlan Report, most of Spamouflage’s efforts are not focused on targeting American conservatives but on amplifying existing criticisms toward American society and government at large.




There are other accounts that create similar content, but tailored for Democrats, and others that aim to anger and polarize independents, further disenfranchising them from the political process altogether.




Some have impersonated American anti-war activists, sharing memes calling former President Donald Trump a “fraud” and showing him in an orange prison uniform. Others question the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency.




What makes the Harlan Report persona unique is its success in finding a following and its pioneering role in targeting a niche audience the same way any advertiser would.




Now, security leaders are concerned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will learn from its successes and continue to deploy Harlan-type social media profiles tailored to impersonate American citizens and exploit Americans’ likes and dislikes at a granular level.




It is an issue that the Congressional Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the CCP is aware of and is now pressuring social media companies to take more seriously.
CCP Is Impersonating Americans to Influence 2024 Elections Image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F10%2F17%2Fid5743326-1
“It’s no surprise the CCP is now using fraudulent social media accounts to target our upcoming elections,” committee chair Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times..
“We encourage social media companies to expose the CCP’s propaganda campaign and take action against CCP bots that are trying to deceive Americans.”





China’s Targeting Tactics



Foreign attempts to influence U.S. elections are nothing new, but their increasing stridency and varying levels of success are.




China, Iran, and Russia are all currently engaged in influence operations aiming to interfere in the 2024 elections, according to a report published in August by cybersecurity company Recorded Future.




That report found that Chinese state-backed actors are “amplifying content highlighting polarizing domestic issues”—including issues related to Black Lives Matter, school campus protests, and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel and Ukraine—to sow discord between Americans.




Moreover, Iranian-backed actors have targeted Trump’s reelection campaign, attempting to gain access to its inner circle.




Russian-backed influence operations, meanwhile, have attempted to discredit the Democratic presidential ticket by spreading fabricated stories and images about Vice President Kamala Harris.


The report found that Chinese influence operations, including Spamouflage, have historically failed to generate traction among American audiences but are now seeing sporadic breakthrough success with viral content.




Those breakthroughs, in large part, are due to the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfakes, which the operators behind Spamouflage use to play on the likes and dislikes of a target audience.




John Mills, who previously served as the director of cybersecurity policy at the U.S. Defense Department, told The Epoch Times that the CCP is using AI to sort and interpret user data to better exploit users’ fears and desires.




“People don’t understand the immense power of big data, big data analytics, and the AI component that China has mastered and is using on an unbelievable scale,” Mills said.




They [the CCP] are delivering a data stream tailored and customized to that individual, knowing their likes, their dislikes, their trigger points.”


An unclassified memo on election security published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in July found that the Chinese regime “is seeking to expand its ability to collect and monitor data on U.S. social media platforms, probably to better understand—and eventually manipulate—public opinion.”


Mills said that such data would help the CCP to dial in information about social media users’ positive and negative interactions, with which the regime could then create better-tailored and better-concealed influence operations.


Those operations could then attempt to trigger mass distrust or hysteria over real or faked events, which Mills referred to as “tailored mass psychosis.”
“This is psychological operations 101: knowing your target audience, knowing their trigger points, and that’s what they’re doing with Spamouflage on a breathtaking, unbelievable scale and creating these fake accounts,” Mills said.

Last year, Meta, which first characterized Spamouflage as the world’s largest online influence operation, said China created 4,800 fake social media accounts posing as Americans.


In most of those cases, the accounts did not start by spreading fake content. Instead, they reshared posts created by real politicians and news outlets from both liberal and conservative sources to build followings and amplify divisive content.


As those followings grew, the profiles changed, both in who they claimed to be and in the type of content they delivered.
Mills said the technique used to identify and exploit Americans was essentially a new iteration of the same type of profiling that big tech corporations have used for years to track consumer preferences.


“When I’m looking for a trailer hitch [online], that commercial for a trailer hitch follows me wherever I go,” he said.
“Now, China has taken what our big tech was doing, but they’re doing it on a much grander scale, with a much more sinister agenda, and without any semblance of bumper cushions or guardrails.”




Conflicting Ideas About China’s Goals


Thus far, the U.S. government has provided no definitive answer as to what China hopes to gain from its mass influence operation. Moreover, the various government bureaus have appeared to contradict themselves on the question of whether the CCP seeks a specific outcome.



The Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment, published Oct. 2, anticipated that foreign use of “subversive tactics in an effort to stroke discord and undermine confidence in U.S. domestic institutions” would increase.


Recently, officials from the ODNI have delivered statements to the press to assert that Russian cyber actors are attempting to elect Trump and undermine Harris.




Yet the ODNI’s most recent election security fact sheet claims that China “probably does not plan to influence the outcome” of the U.S. election.


Mills thinks differently and believes that the CCP is “trying to influence the election” to ensure the election of a candidate who would be less effective at countering its quest for global hegemony.




“What is the Chinese agenda? I think, as opposed to the Russians, who just want to create hate and discontent writ large ... it is election interference,” he said.


One of the ODNI’s reports last year revealed that the CCP was more willing to interfere in U.S. elections now than in previous cycles precisely because it did not believe the Biden administration would retaliate.


The report said that CCP officials gave operatives more freedom to interfere in U.S. elections because the regime “believed that Beijing was under less scrutiny ... and because they did not expect the current administration to retaliate as severely as they feared in 2020.”


(The article continues,,,,,,,,,,,,)


https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/ccp-is-impersonating-americans-to-influence-2024-elections-5739796?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2024-10-18&src_cmp=mb-2024-10-18&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAbOw4JUtdn%2BHF7boC8GZWBhepVtnYAlFT6lVGJHoadVg%3D
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