China was caught trying to intervene in U.S. domestic politics with fake social media accounts.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 27th local time that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had deleted fake accounts in China ahead of the November midterm elections.
Fake accounts in China have been created on social media such as Facebook, the Internet, and Twitter since November last year.
However, unlike Russia, which has been adept at campaigning public opinion against US internet users since the 2016 presidential election, the quality of fake accounts in China was often poor.
Some fake accounts in China featured a man in a suit as a profile picture, but the name was a woman, contrary to the picture.
China's fake accounts criticized President Joe Biden by claiming the constitutional right to own guns and anti-abortion like the US conservatives, but failed to attract the attention of ordinary users due to poor English.
The time period during which the fake accounts were active was from the morning to the afternoon in China local time, and it was also observed that they all stopped activities at lunchtime in China.
Meta identified 81 fake Chinese accounts on Facebook and 8 pages and 1 group for promotion.
The New York Times reported that the exact reason and goal of China creating such fake accounts is unclear.
China's fake accounts abruptly stopped mentioning US domestic politics in July and focused their firepower on Czech politics.
Ben Nimmo, who is in charge of global intelligence at Meta, explained, “It is a big change that China started talking to Americans while mimicking Americans.