According to the Graphika intelligence company, a campaign linked to Beijing, known as “spamouflage”, disseminated erroneous information on the deadly floods that hit Spain.
An online Chinese influence operation pretended to be a human rights defense group in Spain in order to disseminate calls to the reversal of the Spanish government on social media following the murderous floods that hit Valence , last October, according to a study by the Graphika intelligence company.
The Chinese state campaign – nicknamed “Spamouflage “by analysts – pretended to be the NGO SAFEGUARD DEFENDERS, based in Spain, on social media platforms such as Facebook, Tiktok and X to circulate content criticizing the government’s response to the floods that killed At least 225 people last October, according to a company report based in the United States.
Spamouflage has used thousands of accounts to broadcast content on at least 50 websites, forums and social media platforms in recent years, with targets ranging from American voters to Canadian legislators, according to graphika analysts and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), based in the United Kingdom.
However, this last campaign marks the first time that the operation linked to Beijing directly calls for the overthrow of a foreign government, according to Jack Stubbs, Director of Intelligence of Graphika.
“”This activity shows that online Chinese influence operations become more aggressive in their attempts to manipulate national political conversations in Western countries and undermine Beijing critics“He said.
The Chinese Embassy in Madrid and the Spanish government could not be joined immediately for a comment.
Graphika said that he had identified dozens of social media accounts displaying content in English and Spanish who claimed to show the defenders of the safeguard condemning the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the regional administration of Carlos Mazón, Head of the Valencian community .
The key element in the campaign was a video – on which the Safeguard Defenders logo appeared – in which a person with a mask by Guy Fawkes and claiming to belong to the NGO declared that they want “denounce“The authorities for abandoning normal people. The video, which has been published on X but has been withdrawn since, ends with a call to overthrow the government.
Graphika also pointed out content that had badly spelled the name of Carlos Mazón by calling it “Carlos Ma Song “which, according to analysts, was most likely a Chinese translitity.
A sustained attack
According to Graphika, this campaign most certainly aimed to discredit Safeguard Defenders, which spamouflage has targeted several times after the NGO accused the Chinese government of managing police posts abroad, in EU countries, in 2022.
For Laura Harth, director of the NGO Safeguard Defenders, specialist in China, its structure is the subject of a “New sustained and multilingual attack“Aims to cast doubt on his work since the publication of his research on Chinese secret police stations in 2022.
“”Since last summer, we have found an increase in creativity, technical expertise and resources devoted to this campaign against us“.
Spamouflage has targeted several countries since 2017, but intensified its activities last year before the American presidential election in November and pretended to be American voters in order to influence political conversations around the vote, said Graphika in September.
In response, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the China Embassy in Washington, rejected Graphika’s conclusions, describing them as “Prejudices and malicious speculation“, And said Beijing would not intervene in the American elections.
In October 2023, the Canadian government said the operation had left thousands of disinformation and propaganda comments on the social media accounts of several deputies, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A meta report dating from August 2023 described spamouflage like “the largest operation of secret multiplatform influence known in the world“And indicated that she had links with the Chinese authorities responsible for the application of the law.
Compared to conventional war or economic sanctions, online influence operations are considered by malicious state actors as an inexpensive and little risky means of harming geopolitical adversaries by undermining citizens’ confidence in their governments, affirm the Analysts.