cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10296832

Videos showing AI-generated "Polish soldiers" criticizing Ukraine, the European Union and Poland's government have circulated online, with researchers warning the content may be tied to Russian influence operations.

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Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation warned in a post on X on Tuesday that fabricated videos of purported Polish soldiers had spread across YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram in recent days.

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The clips, styled as interviews, showed AI-generated men in uniform criticizing Ukrainians, referencing the World War II-era Volhynia massacres and claiming refugees were driving up crime in Poland.

Poland's NASK state research institute, which also flagged the videos, said its analysis found signs pointing to a possible Russian link, including awkward phrasing typical of translation from Russian, stray Cyrillic characters, and uniforms resembling those worn by Russian and Belarusian forces rather than Polish ones.

NASK said the fabricated soldiers repeatedly used derogatory nicknames for Ukrainians and made claims about Poland's Border Guard agency.

The videos also warned of an alleged wave of migrants entering Poland and used anti-EU rhetoric.

...

It is not the first time AI-generated soldiers have been used for disinformation targeting Poland and Ukraine, experts say.

Public broadcaster TVP Info reported in October that a video showing purported Polish soldiers calling for the seizure of Lviv had been generated using the AI model Veo, identifiable by its visible watermark.

A month later, a separate video circulated on social media showing a crying 23-year-old man who claimed to have been mobilized into Ukraine's army.

...

Archived

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56505579

Here is the report in Polish (pdf) and the report in English (pdf).

How does TikTok show China to Polish users?

Experts from the Polish NASK Disinformation Analysis Centre examined nearly 10,000 pieces of material on six topics considered particularly sensitive by Beijing (Xinjiang, Tibet, Tiananmen Square massacre, Taiwan, human rights, re-education camps). They show that the way content is recommended may be conducive to building a favourable image of China.

Some key points:

• Many of the materials classified as „pro-China” based on the adopted criteria contained statements fully consistent with messages approved by the Publicity Department and other bodies directly subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

• There are at least several English-language accounts on the Tiktok app responsible for spreading pro-Chinese propaganda messages. A few characteristics indicate their direct links to the Chinese propaganda mechanism, including they exclusively discuss topics important to Chinese propaganda message, promote an extremely pro-Chinese message, attempt to discredit individuals criticizing the CCP’s actions, and publish large amounts of professionally prepared content despite posing as, for example, ordinary tourists in China.

• The Tiktok app does not designate state-owned channels as “state-controlled media as Facebook does. This means that it is impossible to determine which channels on the platform operate directly under government control.

• The examined material raises legitimate doubts about the impartiality of the TikTok app. It is impossible to definitively answer the question whether this is solely the result of the algorithm itself or the presence of a significant number of propaganda channels on the platform, whose activities are not moderated or labeled in any way.

• This raises doubts, especially considering the platform’s subordination to a Chinese entity (ByteDance) operating within the Chinese legal system. Therefore, the app has significant potential to become a tool for shaping audience attitudes and views in the event of large scale influence operations.

• Given the scale of Sino-Russian cooperation in information exchange, the TikTok app may pose a potential threat to the security of Polish users. Therefore, it is recommended not only to approach content appearing on the platform critically, but also to refrain from publishing sensitive data on the platform – this is particularly relevant for government entities and individuals associated with the state apparatus.

[...]

The analysis showed that the way content was presented on TikTok differed significantly depending on the topic. The highest percentage of pro-Chinese content was recorded for Xinjiang (58.7%) and Tibet (44.5%). This also applied to the issue of human rights in China (35%).

In turn, the results that referred to the Tiananmen Square massacre were dominated by content critical of the Chinese authorities (76.6%). "We treat such actions as a so-called "safety valve" – a strategy to create the impression of freedom of speech," the analysts write.

In the case of Taiwan, neutral materials predominated (92%). The most unusual results were obtained for the topic of re-education camps – as much as 89% of the displayed materials were not related to the searched topic. "The conclusions of the study clearly show that TikTok uses different content selection strategies for different topics.

"However, we should not focus solely on the operation of one algorithm. This is a question about who shapes the image of the world that millions of users see every day, and how they do it," says Antoni Mazek, an analyst at the NASK Disinformation Analysis Centre and co-author of the report.

[...]

In the flood of information, it is easier to give up further searches In the case of the topic concerning re-education camps, OAD analysts observed a large number of random videos. Unrelated content accounted for as much as 89%. In response to this specific query, several dozen materials appeared praising miraculous methods for weight loss (34% of content on the topic of health/weight loss), and even recordings of Chinese women doing the hula hoop.

"This is intended to discourage users from further searches – explains Dr Agnieszka Lipińska, head of OAD. "It simply causes frustration in the recipient. The search for information on an important topic collides with content that is less intellectually engaging," she adds.

Western influencers reinforce manipulation The analysed content rarely took the form of official messages. It often took the form of travel advertisements or lifestyle content. There was also material featuring Western influencers who constructed their narratives according to a similar pattern: they presented themselves as people "discovering the truth" about China and criticised Western media coverage. It was their materials that were most often recommended to Polish users. Prolonged exposure to such content may affect the perception of China by the audience, according to the researchers.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/55337382

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An investigation of 30 TikTok accounts found a factory-like system behind over 550 videos. Nearly all (98 per cent) were assembled by taking AI-generated, manipulated or copied female personas ...Nearly nine in 10 videos pushed false or misleading claims about Singapore and Malaysia, drawing more than 3 million views in total.

Between October 2025 and June 2026, they repeatedly advanced a worldview where Singapore’s fortunes were dictated by China. The narratives blended fact, distortion and outright invention: The most outlandish one claimed that Singapore’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan had unsuccessfully begged China and Indonesia not to let a new shipping route bypass Singapore’s port. No such thing happened.

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The videos’ creators’ ... use genuine news as hooks for baseless claims. One alleged that Singapore’s port dominance was about to “collapse” now that China’s Hainan Free Trade Port had become fully operational in December. Another seized on an unrelated event, ExxonMobil’s Singapore plant closure, as supposed proof of Singapore’s decline.

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Another set of [Tiktok] videos used the same tactic – of trying to blur the line between truth and falsehood – by leaning on how Singapore has been China’s largest foreign investor since 2013. This real statistic served, however, as the foundation for subsequently arguing that Singapore had prospered by aligning itself with China’s rise, and for implying that other countries should do the same.

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But Singapore is not the only target of the disinformation campaign.

Where the Singapore-focused claims cast China as a patron, the Malaysia ones took on a more contentious framing, with several blaming the country’s allegedly slower development on policies that sidelined its ethnic Chinese population.

The goal appears to be to erode trust and fracture social cohesion, said Associate Professor Saifuddin Ahmed from Nanyang Technological University (NTU)’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

“Any audience that grows to distrust its own government's narrative is more susceptible to external influence over time,” he added.

The experts also suggested that beyond domestic Singapore and Malaysia audiences, the global Mandarin-speaking diaspora could be a target. There is strategic value, for instance, in attempting to shape how investors might perceive the stability and political orientation of the two countries, said Assoc Prof Saifuddin.

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“TikTok's short-form, high-volume format means users encounter the same narratives repeatedly across different accounts without necessarily recognising it as a coordinated campaign,” Assoc Prof Saifuddin explained. “That repetition alone, independent of content quality, increases the likelihood that claims feel familiar and therefore plausible.”

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The same tactic has been observed in previously documented influence as well as marketing campaigns. According to reports in 2024, Chinese state-linked groups had targeted the Taiwanese elections that year with AI-generated news anchors. And in June this year, a network of fake female dating profiles were found pushing propaganda ahead of local polls in Taiwan.

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Asked about the effectiveness of the videos, Assoc Prof Saifuddin said that “view counts tell you about reach, not about whether minds were actually changed”.

But he also reiterated that the operation “doesn't need to convince people outright; it just needs to make certain framings feel familiar and recurring”.

The use of Mandarin is also a factor, with fact-checking and debunking efforts in this space lagging behind English-language cases, said Mr Benjamin Ang, who heads the centre of excellence for national security at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) think-tank.

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Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54786351

China presents itself as a neutral partner in Russia's war against Ukraine, but Chinese state media serve to reproduce and reinforce exclusively Russian narratives, both among local populations in occupied Ukrainian territories as well as in China.

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At first glance, Lu Yuguang presents himself with modesty. “I’m just a correspondent,” he claimed in a profile published in late May by RT, the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet. The Russia bureau chief of Phoenix TV - a Chinese television channel majority-owned by the Chinese state - .... displays his war trophies in his office. They include fragments of Ukrainian drones, Russian military insignia and memorabilia from his reporting on the Chechen wars in North Caucasus. In one of the many photographs hanging on his wall, he stands alongside Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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His alignment with the Kremlin’s narrative is undeniable. In a video released in April to mark Phoenix TV’s 30th anniversary, he refers to the invasion as a “special military operation,” Moscow’s euphemism for its war of aggression. Ukrainian prisoners of war are portrayed as preferring captivity to combat, omitting the systematic torture inflicted on Ukrainians in Russian detention facilities documented by international organisations such as Human Rights Watch. He also openly boasts of his “good relationship with the Russian military,” which grants him privileged access to the front lines.

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China does not officially recognise Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory, but this has not prevented it from establishing a presence there. According to an investigation by the independent Ukrainian outlet Realna Gazeta, Chinese companies are investing in the occupied territories — primarily in reconstruction projects — alongside Russia. In parallel, Beijing’s influence is also gradually expanding in the media sphere.

“Publicly, China maintains a rhetoric of ‘neutrality,’ but within the information space of these territories, Chinese actors primarily serve to reproduce or reinforce the Russian narrative,” explains Vira Yastrebova, director of the Ukrainian organisation Eastern Human Rights Group, which specialises in the Donbas region and published a 2026 report on the economic dealings of China and Iran in the occupied territories.

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China’s presence also takes the form of press trips organised and controlled by the Russian authorities. In April, a nearly ten-day tour organised by SOVINTERN, a pro-Kremlin “international socialist movement” publicly backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, brought around ten participants — presented as international reporters — from countries including Japan, Turkey and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the occupied territories. Among them were two Chinese bloggers.

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Other members of the Chinese media have enjoyed similar privileged access. In 2022, Dmitry Maslak, Russian correspondent for China’s state broadcaster CGTN at the time, accompanied Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol. In 2023, a delegation led by Rao Jin, president of the nationalistic Chinese online outlet April Media, travelled to Donetsk and Crimea. He said he wanted to learn more about “life in Crimea,” claiming that Chinese audiences lacked “reliable information” because of the “ideological war waged by the West.”

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More recently, the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), an RSF partner in Ukraine, profiled Zhu Haozheng, a freelance “war correspondent” who has travelled repeatedly to these regions since 2022. His reporting is clearly aligned with Kremlin messaging: he notably describes Ukrainians as “fascists,” echoing one of the Russian government’s favourite tropes. On the Chinese-language version of the Kremlin-controlled outlet Sputnik, he appears in a video filmed in Donetsk alongside Christelle Néant, co-founder of the pro-Russian disinformation site International Reporters.

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“Even if limited in scale, the Chinese media presence in occupied Ukrainian territories represents a victory for Russian propaganda. Beijing provides the Kremlin with what it needs most: international legitimacy, the amplification of its media and help normalising the occupation. In return, Moscow opens the occupied territories to Chinese investment,"

says Pauline Maufrais from RSF Regional Officer for Ukraine.

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Xi Jinping’s China is increasingly establishing itself as a preferred partner for media organisations operating in occupied Ukrainian territories.

Speaking to RSF, Andrii Dikhtiarenko, editor-in-chief of Realna Gazeta, who monitors China’s presence in these regions, has observed a clear shift since 2022. “Local propagandists are now travelling to China for exchanges of experience,” he said.

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“Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese regime has sought to present itself as a neutral actor and potential mediator, yet allows Kremlin narratives to dominate China’s tightly censored information space, integrating them into state media content," says Aleksandra Bielakowska, Advocacy Manager at RSF Asia Pacific.

"Beijing has also reproduced and amplified Russian propaganda through outlets such as CGTN while allowing Russian state media to disseminate their messaging freely within a globally coordinated propaganda apparatus ... The international community must show the same level of vigilance toward Chinese state media as it does toward Russian state media and prevent this propaganda from flooding the global information space."

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/55646262

Archived

China’s rules on AI-generated content are meant to control what models say about China, in line with official CCP rhetoric. This experiment, however, finds that the effects extend far more widely. When asked about human rights, opposition, or ethnic minorities in another country, some of the LLMs often stop answering about that country and instead recite China’s official positions, sometimes dropping the country entirely.

Key takeaways:

• China’s AI-content rules spill over well beyond China-related questions, distorting how its models answer questions about other countries’ politics, human rights, and foreign affairs.
• The trigger is the topic rather than the country. Kimi switched to CCP messaging in about one of every three answers on politically sensitive topics, and DeepSeek in about one of every four. This pattern appeared regardless of the country’s relation to China, political regime or geography.
• Language amplifies the effect, with significant insertion of CCP framing rising from 24% in English to 59% in Mandarin across the top ten topics.

[...]

Taiwan [...] seems to be controlled more strictly. Every Chinese LLM tested in this experiment appears to have settings that prevent it from treating Taiwan as a country in any context. The consistency across models, including Qwen and GLM, suggests this is a particularly important topic.

Given that TC260 explicitly requires models not to undermine “national unity” and that the keyword blocklist reportedly contains thousands of political terms, Taiwan is likely included in both the keyword list and the 2,000-question compliance test.

Chinese LLMs rarely give useful information on Taiwan-related questions, instead offering politically curated answers even for trivial or non-political topics. Of 160 responses about Taiwan, 81% show significant CCP censorship. Usually, the model refuses to treat Taiwan as a country and stresses the “One China Principle.” Compared to other topics, all four models give a useless answer much more often for Taiwan: Qwen fails 97.5% of the time, Kimi 87.5%, DeepSeek 90%, and even GLM-5 fails 50% of the time.

Even questions about food or geography can trigger this behavior, and the models often give a “One China” disclaimer before, or instead of, answering. This can be seen in Qwen’s answer to the question “What is the national cuisine of Taiwan like?”: “It is important to clarify that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. The delicious food culture of Taiwan is an important component of Chinese cuisine, reflecting the rich culinary heritage of the Chinese nation…”

[...]

China’s political alignment requirements seem to lead to frequent, noticeable failures in [Chinese LLM's] answers to politically sensitive questions, even when China isn’t mentioned. For many such questions about any country, the OpenRouter endpoints gave answers that sounded like statements from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When the models couldn’t provide a useful answer, they usually gave a fully China-focused response rather than a partial one. This behavior seems to be triggered by certain keywords, such as governance, human rights, opposition, surveillance, international order, and sovereignty.

The Estonian Intelligence report mentioned earlier noticed this pattern in DeepSeek and called it a threat. This article builds on those findings by examining different countries, topics, and Chinese LLMs. The results show that these response patterns aren’t limited to one country or a single LLM. Using these LLMs for foreign policy analysis could therefore produce unreliable results and help spread censored narratives. It remains unclear whether the models would behave the same way if accessed directly or run locally, so more research is needed.

[...]

Russia is targeting Poland, Germany and France with disinformation aimed at weakening support for Ukraine’s European Union membership bid.

Archived

The report by the European External Action Service (EEAS) and Ukraine’s government Center for Countering Disinformation says Moscow is using official state media, social media accounts, anonymous networks and manipulated content to sow dissent inside the EU and undermine Ukraine’s place in Europe.

The campaign is part of Russia’s wider aggression against Ukraine. Moscow launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, after years of trying to keep Kyiv inside its sphere of influence.

Ukraine applied to join the EU four days later. It received official candidate status in June 2022; accession talks opened in 2024, and the first substantive negotiation cluster was opened earlier this month.

The report says Russia’s messaging deliberately exploits sensitive issues in European societies, including corruption, security, national identity, migration and the economic cost of supporting Ukraine.

Poland is described as especially exposed to messages targeting Ukrainian refugees, who are frequently portrayed in Russian propaganda as criminal or dangerous.

'Kremlin fears Ukraine’s success'

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia’s actions were "neither isolated nor accidental."

"They are deliberate, coordinated, and persistent," Kallas said. "They seek to exploit fears related to corruption, security, identity, and economic costs. They target audiences both in Ukraine and across EU member states, aiming to undermine Ukraine’s accession to the EU."

Kallas added that Russia’s campaign points to “an important truth: the Kremlin fears Ukraine’s success.”

[...]

Analysts examined 244,000 social media posts published between January 2025 and May 2026 on platforms including Telegram, X, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.

The content reached more than 1.39 billion views. The report identified 2,680 sources showing signs of inauthentic behavior, meaning coordinated activity that did not appear to come from ordinary, independent users.

[...]

Meanwhile, a Russian disinformation campaign aims to fuel tensions between Ukraine and Poland.

A video circulating on social media and anonymous Telegram channels is being passed off by Russian propagandists as a Euronews news report. It falsely claims that Poland is preparing to deport 50,000 Ukrainians amid diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

This claim is false.

No such reports have appeared on Euronews' official website or its social media accounts. The video bears clear signs of manipulation and was compiled using third-party photos and video footage that are publicly available online. Moreover, it depicts isolated incidents rather than providing evidence of any mass deportations.

[...]

Similar fabrications are part of the broader Russian disinformation campaign known as "Matryoshka," which disguises fake content as reports from reputable media outlets, government institutions, or fact-checking organizations. The objective of these operations is to create the illusion of credibility by imitating trusted sources, using fabricated front pages, screenshots, videos, and documents.

[...]

anti propaganda community

look inside

anti russia propaganda

A new investigation reveals how a sophisticated Russian information manipulation set (IMS), dubbed “Roska Bridge”, uses alternative and decentralised social media platforms as a weapon to flood Western and domestic Russian audiences with aggressive, anti-Western, and anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

Here is the full report: Roska Bridge - How a pro-Russian IMS exploits vulnerabilities of decentralised platforms to spread propaganda (pdf)

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Active since at least September 2025, this IMS has disseminated several coordinated campaigns by strategically exploiting architectural flaws in the decentralised Fediverse (Mastodon) and uses the Brid.gy service to cross-post simultaneously on Bluesky and on Mastodon. Targeting countries such as Ukraine, France, Germany and the United States, the content related to this IMS also promotes Max, a Russian state-backed messenger requiring a Russian phone number to operate, suggesting it targets domestic Russian audiences as well as Western ones.

By laundering content from EU-sanctioned Russian media outlets (such as the Pravda network, Russia Today, and Sputnik) and using automated accounts with seemingly AI-generated features, this IMS has managed to establish a highly organized and coordinated infrastructure to circumvent content moderation and legal regulations.

During the investigation, researchers found hundreds of Mastodon accounts during our research, “bridging” all their publications to Bluesky in coordinated waves, with new batches of accounts activated each month, remaining active for short, intense bursts, before disappearing and being replaced. Those accounts are still running on ten Mastodon instances, including the original instance mastodon.social, which gathers over 870,000 users, and bridged to hundreds of accounts on Bluesky.

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Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/55348566

Archived

Here is a video (1 min).

Another report says the crash killed the pilot and injured 13.

[...]

On Friday afternoon [June 26] a small plane appeared to evade some of the world’s strictest aviation controls and slam into the tallest skyscraper in Beijing, the 109-story CITIC Tower that dominates the city’s skyline, killing the pilot and injuring 13 other people.

The crash sent shards of glass and aircraft debris plummeting hundreds of feet down to the streets below as office workers left for the weekend, causing panic in the heart of China’s most protected city.

A short while later, it was like nothing had happened.

All references to the incident – and the shocking footage of it – had been scrubbed from Chinese social media. The government initially did not publicly acknowledge any incident had taken place. State media – including the country’s national broadcaster CCTV, headquartered across the road from the crash site – made no mention of the incident.

That’s thanks to the work of China’s army of censors and the Communist authorities’ obsessive control over information – particularly concerning events they believe may bring negative attention or consequences

[...]

It’s still unknown whether the crash was accidental or intentional.

[...]

The CITIC tower, is 528-meters tall (equivalent to 1,732 feet). It has been Beijing’s tallest building since 2018 and dominates the skyline.

It hosts China’s state-owned conglomerate CITIC Group and tech giant Alibaba and the surrounding neighborhood is a prime location in Beijing, and frequented by foreigners and diplomats. The embassies of countries ranging from the UK to Vietnam are just steps away, as are big names in global finance including the World Bank and IFC’s China offices.

[...]

Beijing resident Anna, who wanted only her first name used, said she went to the site after hearing about the crash online.

“I was just like two stops away… and I saw this post… but it gets deleted soon. So I just came here.”

The footage has since gone viral on social media outside mainland China.

Inside the country, a search for “plane crash in Beijing” on Weibo, China’s version of X, produced no relevant results.

It is common practice for Chinese authorities to act quickly to censor or impose an information blackout and deploy a heavy police presence to any incident that is seen as potentially destabilizing social stability.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54277608

Russia has allocated 185 billion rubles ($2.15 billion) to fund disinformation campaigns directed against European Union and NATO countries, marking a 50% increase compared to the previous year.

This funding is part of an effort by Moscow to systematically weaken Ukrainian journalism as an institution, executing both physical attacks on the front lines and information control in occupied territories, according to Detector media on June 26.

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Ukrainian Member of Parliament Yevheniia Kravchuk shared these findings during a panel on the wartime status of Ukrainian media at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) in Gdansk, Poland.

Kravchuk stated that the Kremlin's information operations will not cease even after the current kinetic phase of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine ends. She explained that when discussions turn toward international investments and European integration for Ukraine, Moscow will actively push alternative narratives to convince Western publics to return to the old days and restore ties.

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The current statistics indicate that at least 15 Ukrainian journalists and 4 French journalists have been killed by the Russian Federation while performing their professional duties. Kravchuk raised broader questions regarding the efficacy of international legal frameworks when one combatant party completely disregards established global conventions protecting media personnel.

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Beyond physical targeting, the strategy involves identity theft of media brands in occupied areas, where local publication layouts and names are duplicated by occupation authorities to distribute Moscow-approved content.

Kravchuk also pointed to the creation of alternative documentary films regarding the siege of Mariupol to counter acclaimed authentic accounts like the Oscar-winning film "20 Days in Mariupol" by Mstyslav Chernov, forcing genuine reporters to compete directly against fabricated realities.

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54275021

When people talk about foreign influence operations, Russia is usually the first country that comes to mind. We picture troll factories, aggressive TV shows or conspiracy theories spreading on social media.

But a study published this June by Viginum, France’s national agency for countering foreign digital interference, describes a very different approach. At its centre is not loud propaganda, but an entire network of news portals that look like ordinary media outlets and focus mainly on how successful, innovative and essential to the world China supposedly is.

According to Viginum, the network consisted of 13 websites operated by China’s state broadcaster CGTN, or China Global Television Network. The portals published articles in English, French, Spanish and Vietnamese, presenting themselves as independent media outlets. In reality, they were part of a coordinated influence operation, which French authorities named Fawn Mianju.

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One of the best-known portals in the network was called Actu Méridien. It was a French-language website that looked just like an ordinary news outlet. The same network also included the Spanish-language Amigo News, English-language sites and Vietnamese-language publications.

The content of these sites did not focus on criticising the West. Quite the opposite. Readers were told about China’s achievements in aviation and artificial intelligence, Beijing’s leading role in the Global South, and how European countries could benefit from closer cooperation with China. One article, for example, attacked a programme by the French TV channel France 2 that covered the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

This is exactly what sets Chinese influence operations apart from Russia’s. While Russian propaganda is often dominated by conflict, threat perception and confrontation, China’s goal is to build a positive image of itself. Freedom House describes this as a long-term strategy aimed at “telling China’s story well”. At its core is the image of China as a successful, trustworthy and indispensable partner.

Freedom House notes that in France, Chinese state media has for years tried to influence public opinion not only through its own channels, but also through partnerships, paid content and social media influencers. These have included both Facebook influencers and traditional media outlets that have published paid supplements from Chinese state media.

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The most interesting part of the story, however, is the role played by artificial intelligence. According to Viginum’s investigation, since late 2025 CGTN published nearly 3,000 articles, more than 2,300 of which were quickly adapted and republished on other websites in the network. This often happened less than an hour after the original story appeared.

The articles were not copied word for word. The texts were edited, shortened, adapted for different target audiences and rewritten so that they appeared to be original content. Investigators found that the texts showed unusually little natural variation in sentence length and punctuation. This is one of the signs associated with automatically generated or AI-assisted content.

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One mistake led back to CGTN

The strongest evidence linking the network to China’s state broadcaster came from an unexpected place. The administrator of one portal, Actu Méridien, left behind a login trail that led Viginum investigators to a senior project manager at CGTN Digital.

In addition, investigators found a hidden webpage on Actu Méridien’s server that had been built to resemble CGTN’s official website.

An anonymous Viginum analyst told Le Monde that the portal’s technical setup pointed to “a well-resourced actor”. The website was not running on a single server, but used a distributed architecture, professional SEO tools and several different infrastructure components.

Still, it did not become successful propaganda

Perhaps the most surprising part is that, despite the scale of the effort, the operation was not particularly successful. The network was supported by Facebook and Threads accounts, and advertising campaigns were shown to users in as many as 89 countries. Yet individual articles usually received no more than around 15,000 views.

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Influence operations no longer have to look like propaganda.

There is no need for loud voices, militant slogans or obvious fake news. A website that resembles an ordinary news portal is enough. An article about China’s green transition or technological success is enough. And so is artificial intelligence that can adapt the same message for dozens of different target audiences within minutes.

The question is no longer only whether a news story is true or false. The question is who is telling stories about the world, what kinds of stories are being told, and whether the reader even notices that the “news” in front of them was not produced in an independent newsroom, but far away in Beijing.

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54215564

Counter-disinformation should become a bilateral Australia–Japan priority, an explainer published today by ASPI and Japan Nexus Intelligence argues. Mission leads should be appointed in Australia’s Office of National Intelligence and Japan’s newly established National Intelligence Agency.

An information offensive against Japan is being conducted through overt propaganda tools, including Chinese state media, as well as by exploiting an online network of social media influencers, inauthentic accounts and bots to spread disinformation and boost Beijing’s narratives. Beijing has ratcheted up its campaign since Sanae Takaichi became prime minister in October. Nonetheless, Takaichi’s resounding general electoral victory in February this year gives her government a mandate to push ahead with reforms that will improve Japan’s resilience to disinformation and other types of coercion.

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Takaichi’s reforms have included the establishment in May of a new ministerial-level National Intelligence Committee, served by the equally new National Intelligence Agency, to better direct Japan’s multiple intelligence institutions.

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China’s foreign affairs spokesperson reacted to these reforms by labelling them a return to imperial-era militarism and preparation for international aggression ... This should resonate with Australians, who weathered years of China’s economic sanctions and other forms of coercion after their government, with bipartisan support, adopted a suite of counter foreign interference measures around 2018. Beijing then, as now in relation to Japan, tried to conceal its responsibility for coercing Australia behind lies in public and more subtle disinformation online. The lesson that Canberra and Tokyo can learn from their recent history is that information warfare is fundamental to Beijing’s statecraft. So it makes sense for them to work together to counter it.

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Australia and Japan have complementary strengths that can help them collectively tackle disinformation. Australia has passed legislation and set up institutions to counter foreign interference, including a transparency register to distinguish between lawful lobbying and malign activities, as well as mechanisms for attributing hybrid attacks to specific groups and countries. Australia also has unrivalled networks across much of the Pacific. Shifting to Japan, its size, location and regional economic weight gives it unique insights into China and Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. Tokyo’s trailblazing approach to economic security provides a novel perspective on protecting critical industries and technologies from information warfare.

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Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54132162

Russian influence operators called it Project 2026. The plan wasn’t just to spread fabricated stories on social media platforms. It outlined efforts to create an alternative information ecosystem.

Leaked documents from a private Russian agency reveal plans to build a sprawling network of Wikipedia-style reference sites, media outlets and phony think tanks to shape how people and AI chatbots understand political issues.

The documents from the Social Design Agency (SDA), which has been sanctioned by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union for supporting Kremlin-directed disinformation, show how the Moscow-based agency has emerged as a central node in Russia’s cognitive warfare system, involved in false flag operations and planting sham stories online.

Among the 73 leaked files are project proposals and screenshots of chats and websites dating from May 2023 to April 2026. Combined, they suggest Russian influence operators are expanding beyond spreading false stories on social media platforms to trying to control the sources of information that underpin search engines and large language models. Fact Investigation Platform, an Armenian media outlet focused on disinformation, first reported on some of the documents.

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One proposal outlined plans to build a reference site “cloned” from Wikipedia for Armenia that operators would optimize for search engines and insert Russia-friendly narratives into the most-read pages. The proposal was dated April 14, according to its metadata, just two months before the country’s June 7 election.

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Another project targeting Germany said 200,000 web pages were created, according to a planning document dated Jan. 15. It set goals, including editing 100 articles a month targeting search engines. The plan also aimed to “train” six AI platforms a month using edited articles. It did not disclose the names of the websites. The BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said it was aware of the leak but declined to comment.

...

“Their approach is to try to break search engines by flooding the zone with content that cross-references their content or their narratives,” said Katerina Sedova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center ... “This will be their indirect way of breaking into popular chatbots and search engines.”

...

Most of the leaked documents don’t contain SDA logos, but European officials and researchers said they believed the files were genuine based on their content and the style of the proposals, some of which are similar to SDA documents disclosed by the U.S. Justice Department and European media in 2024.

...

Historical Domain Name System data was used to independently confirm the existence of the 42 websites shown in screenshots of the operation’s content management system, evidence that would be difficult to falsify. Almost all of them were hosted on the same Russia-based internet protocol address, which also appears in the leaked documents.

...

Reporters found three websites — spyurk.cyou, sevan.info and khachkar.info — hosted at the same internet protocol address and registered in January that have pages copied from Wikipedia on Armenia in Russian. The spyurk.cyou page on the Armenian diaspora appears to be a copy from the Russian-language version on Wikipedia, which removed references to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The sites were suspended by their internet provider on June 9. The provider didn’t respond to requests for comment.

...

Reporters also found numerous websites run by SNG-Media, a group working with the SDA to advance pro-Russian views according to a leaked SDA brochure. The websites credit images to spyurk.cyou, even though they’re available on Wikipedia, Shutterstock or social media. The websites, including erevan.one targeting Armenia, are hosted in the Russian Federation and registered with Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor, which controls and restricts online information.

...

Russia has tried to use think tanks and news outlets as fronts to influence Western public opinion over the past decade. In 2021, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Moscow-based Strategic Culture Foundation and three other outlets for working with Russian intelligence agencies to spread false information. Reports in 2022 revealed that Wikipedia pages in multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, referenced the SCF.

...

It also outlined a plan to monitor 100 French opposition politicians and republish 30 to 40 of their posts daily. A screenshot of an opinion tracker for France from April revealed that the group was monitoring social media posts of a dozen far-right and leftwing politicians and public figures, noting hashtags and themes that emerged. Those tracked included Catherine Griset, a member of the European Parliament for the right-wing party Reassemblement National, and Louis Boyard, a member for the leftwing France Unbowed party. Griset and Boyard didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Bloomberg found evidence of similar tracker websites created for the U.K. and Germany earlier this year. The sites group influencer posts around hashtags that operatives created about divisive themes. In the U.K. tracker, trending hashtags included #MigrantCrisis, #BrokenSystem and #WarSpillover.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/53814597

In May, The Insider published an investigation into how Chinese company Harxon supplies Russia with “smart” antennas — the only tool that allows Geran drones to avoid being “blinded” by Ukrainian jammers. As part of the investigation, a researcher from the Nordsint project wrote to Harxon’s official email address and was subsequently contacted by Harxon employees Anthony Zheng and Masha Wu. Zheng accepted an order for a large batch of anti-jamming antennas and then issued an invoice for Harxon antennas through a front company. Antennas with the same markings were found in Geran drones shot down in Ukraine.

A month after the article was published, Harxon sent a “clarification” to several of the company’s partners. In it, the Harxon claimed Anthony Zheng “is not an employee of our company” and that his business activity was “solely his personal actions and those of his behind-the-scenes associates.” Harxon also denied producing antennas from the GI and HXTX series, saying it strictly follows the law.

...

The Insider examined Zheng’s employment history and found that Harxon’s claim about his status with the company is false. On Harxon’s page in the Made in China business directory, Anthony Zheng was directly listed as a sales manager in the company’s international department; notably, that page was deleted after The Insider’s article was published. In addition, last year Kordil Surveying & Engineering Ltd. took to LinkedIn to thank “Harxon Corporation and their representatives Masha Wu and Anthony Zheng” for visiting the company.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/53398843

Thirteen fake news websites launched in 2025 promoted China in a one-sided manner. An investigation by the French government agency Viginum has established that they were directly connected to CGTN, China's state-run television channel.

...

On Thursday, June 4, Viginum – the French government watchdog against foreign digital interference – revealed the existence of a network of fake news sites in multiple languages, all linked to a state media outlet under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, China Global Television Network (CGTN). This discovery has unveiled a textbook case of a superpower attempting to manipulate public opinion in Western countries.

Nicknamed "Fawn Mianju" by French authorities, the operation was first exposed in the summer of 2025 by the American cybersecurity company Graphika. At that time, Graphika identified 11 websites and 16 English-language social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads and X, all uncritically relaying CGTN articles and specifically targeting young people. Other sites shared this content in French ("Actu Méridien"), Spanish ("Amigo News") and Vietnamese.

Mainly published between March 2015 and February 2026, the fake articles posted on "Actu Méridien" promoted Chinese aerospace and artificial intelligence, China as the leader of the "Global South," and environmental initiatives, as well as the supposed benefits for France in aligning with Chinese interests. Another article, published in several languages, criticized a France 2 television report on the treatment of Uyghurs in China.

...

After several months of online investigation, Viginum experts managed to establish that these sites, which were now numbering 13, were directly linked to the state-run CGTN channel, which is overseen by the Chinese Communist Party.

In addition to the fact that the domain name was registered in Beijing and purchased from Alibaba Cloud, a Chinese digital giant, the site used a distributed architecture – meaning it was simultaneously duplicated across several servers. This more expensive setup, along with the use of paid plug-ins to boost internet search rankings, "suggests an actor with significant resources," explained a Viginum analyst, who requested anonymity.

...

These sites display two essential characteristics of a digital interference operation: secrecy and coordination. Despite several campaigns to purchase visibility on Facebook and Threads, targeting a total of 89 countries – mainly in French-speaking Africa – they never managed to break through beyond 15,000 views. The most "liked" posts received 39% of their likes from users located in Burundi, whose sole activity was to interact favorably with Chinese pages.

Given the limited visibility of these sites and their associated accounts, this operation can be considered an operational failure; in fact, "Actu Méridien" has been inactive for several months. Nevertheless, Viginum warns that these sites demonstrate China's determination to promote its narrative to populations in Western countries – including through clandestine means; its growing prowess in using LLMs to automate this kind of production; and, finally, its objective to target both young people and French-speaking Africa.

...

Archive Today link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/53398232

A new analysis suggests that Beijing may be tolerating or even encouraging toxic discourse to undermine the moral and political authority of Kyiv and its Western supporters, says Yurii Poita, MERICS Senior Associate Fellow and Head of the Asia Section at Kyiv-based New Geopolitics Research Network (NGRN).

...

While the Chinese government likes to present itself as “objective and impartial” regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, the tone on Chinese social media is radically different. Influencers on Chinese online platform Weibo, many with millions of followers, regularly attack the Ukrainian government, attempt to drive a wedge between Kyiv and its European and US partners, portray Ukrainian armed forces and recruitment centers as “Nazi,” and justify documented Russian war crimes. Given the links between these opinion leaders and the Chinese state, and the characteristics of China’s media system, this may be driven by an information strategy tolerated or even encouraged by Beijing.

An analysis of 1,800 posts on Weibo – from verified accounts with at least 100,000 followers over the past year – reveals consistently toxic discourse structured around four recurring narratives about the war between Russia and Ukraine.

...

Narrative 1 – Ukraine is a Western proxy run by a charlatan

The government of Ukraine is consistently portrayed as a puppet of the West that long ago lost its sovereignty, is no longer regarded as an independent subject of international law, and whose military affairs are controlled by NATO member states’ militaries and intelligence services. Chinese social-media influencers often depict the government’s purported failings as personified by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He is variously described as a clown, illegitimate, a drug addict and a political usurper. And he is portrayed as opposing peace, undermining Russia’s peace initiatives and sacrificing the Ukrainian people for personal gain. Zelenskyy’s visits to European capitals are described as attempts to ingratiate himself and beg for even more money to finance the war.

...

Narrative 2 – Ukrainian soldiers are deceitful “Nazis”

Many posts about the Ukrainian military accuse it of Nazi sympathies, violating ceasefires, terrorist attacks against Russia, trafficking children from Donbas, and killing its own soldiers. For example, the person behind the account Looking Up to the Marquis of Tiao (“仰止条侯”), which has 575,000 followers, writes: “Ukrainian troops shot dead two comrades who were trying to raise their hands and surrender in front of a Russian drone. This is said to be common practice in the Ukrainian army. They reportedly kill those who try to escape, using them as ‘cannon fodder.’”

...

Narrative 3 – Ukraine and its partners are drifting apart

Many pronouncements aim to weaken the trust and partnership between Ukraine and its Western allies. Stories are spread both to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of Europe and the US, and to undermine its confidence and destroy its faith in its partnership with the West. Widespread claims about “Ukraine fatigue” in Europe, for example, portray Ukraine as a parasitic burden on European resources, while simultaneously accusing Europe of not providing enough help. Russian propaganda outlet Ukraina.ru uses its Chinese-language page on Weibo to claim: “The Kyiv regime has never stopped biting the hand that feeds it […] Zelenskyy did not forget to accuse Western sponsors of delaying air defense missile supplies, shifting responsibility for Ukraine’s energy crisis onto its allies.”

...

Narrative 4 – Russian strikes are a response to “terrorism”

One widespread narrative claims that Russia is carrying out military strikes in response to Kyiv’s “terrorist attacks,” liberating territory from “Ukrainian Nazis” and receiving a warm welcome from the local “liberated” population. For example, one post justifies strikes on Kyiv, NATO facilities and personnel as retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on civilians in the Russian city of Tuapse. Another post interprets the war as a forced confrontation with NATO and the West, not a war of aggression: “Russia’s goals were never territorial but rather aimed at destroying the military capabilities of the West and its proxy armies in order to prevent harm to the interests of the Russian people.”

...

These Chinese narratives largely echo Russian disinformation about Ukraine, reproducing its characteristic vocabulary, including phrases such as “Kyiv regime,” “Ukrainian fascists” or “Zelenskyy the clown.” This suggests that Chinese influencers are systematically adopting Russian information approaches. Several factors suggest this is happening with at least tacit approval from the Chinese state, potentially as part of a broader information policy. Russia and China have, for one, signed several agreements in the information sphere, creating an institutional foundation for coordinated media interaction. While these agreements do not provide direct evidence of joint disinformation campaigns, they do ensure an environment conducive to aligning information approaches.

...

Chinese social media platforms, particularly Weibo, host the official or affiliated pages of Russian media outlets such as Sputnik and “Ukraina.ru,” which systematically spread anti-Ukrainian narratives. The fact that these accounts operate freely and face no restrictions in China’s tightly controlled information environment at the very least suggests state tolerance for their activities. Some Chinese content, thirdly, reproduces messages not only from official Russian representatives but also from Russian military Telegram channels and information resources associated with Russian intelligence services and a broader disinformation system.

...

For example, posts regularly describe conflicts between [Ukrainian] recruitment centers and civilians in detail and systematically present them in a negative light. Given the high degree of state control over China’s information space, their mass dissemination raises questions about why they are permitted. This, lastly, suggests that cultivating critical or negative attitudes towards Ukraine among Chinese audiences may align with Beijing’s foreign policy, which as a result does not appear to be “objective and impartial.”

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54371015

Analysts criticise a damaging precedent after Beijing made an accounting adjustment in an effort to avoid missing a UN commitment.

Archived

China has made an accounting adjustment to how it counts carbon emissions, making its climate change targets easier to meet.

The world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide was previously due to fall far short of the 2025 target it set for UN climate change negotiations.

However, a significant revision to how it measures emissions means China has now officially come close to meeting the goal.

[...]

The shift also means Chinese leaders can claim to have met their international climate commitments for 2030 even if the country’s emissions rise. Previously they would have had to fall.

[...]

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Helsinki-based think tank, said the timing of the change was “obviously motivated” by the need to reduce the shortfall for the climate target for last year.

Lauri Myllyvirta, the centre’s lead analyst, estimated the accounting shift had erased about half of China’s growth in emissions between 2020 and last year. The reduction in emissions is big: 700 million to 730 million fewer tonnes of CO₂ a year, or about twice Britain’s annual emissions.

China is responsible for more than a third of the world’s carbon emissions because of its sheer size and reliance on polluting coal, so its decisions are crucial for determining future global warming. The country has positioned itself as a green leader, exporting wind and solar power components and electric cars to the world.

Most rich countries including the UK have committed themselves to absolute reductions in emissions as part of their international UN climate commitments.

[...]

Chinese officials recently quietly announced changes to how they defined the carbon intensity metric.

Under the new accounting, China now includes CO₂ from industrial processes, such as cement and metals production. Crucially, it excludes the non-energy use of fossil fuels. This means that coal, oil and gas used as raw materials in the country’s growing chemical industry are no longer factored in.

[...]

The result is much lower emissions. Official statistics previously suggested China’s emissions rose by 14 per cent between 2020 and last year. Under the revision, the growth appears to be only 7 per cent.

China would previously have missed its target of reducing carbon intensity by 18 per cent by last year, with only a 12.4 per cent reduction. The new accounting method allows the government to claim a 17.7 per cent reduction.

Myllyvirta said: “China’s decision sets this precedent where if your progress is lagging, you just come up with a way making the numbers look better. That’s a potentially very damaging precedent. To me that’s the most concerning part about it.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54228282

Archived

One of Russia’s most intensive influence campaigns targeting a foreign government relies to a considerable degree on a little-known Turkish citizen named Okay Deprem. Approximately 40 percent of the false claims spread by a Russian influence operation aimed at Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of the country’s June 7, 2026, parliamentary elections, were originated by Deprem, NewsGuard found.

[...]

Deprem, who describes himself as a freelance journalist, apparently moves between Russia, Russian-occupied Ukraine, and Turkey. He produced 17 of the 43 claims aimed at discrediting Pashinyan ahead of the election being pushed by the Russian influence operation known as Storm-1516, according to a NewsGuard analysis. These include claims that Pashinyan’s government banned abortion, that Pashinyan’s wife was having an affair with a Turkish actor, and that Pashinyan was planning to remove all mention of the “Armenian people” from the country’s constitution.

[...]

Other false claims launched by Deprem and then spread by Storm-1516 portray Pashinyan as a “traitor” who capitulates to the demands of hostile neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan by selling off key Armenian infrastructure to Turkey and building luxury housing for Azerbaijanis on Armenian soil.

In a notable departure from the usual Storm-1516 tactic of creating fake news sites to plant false claims, Deprem’s articles are published by real, mostly Turkish nationalist and pro-Russian sites to plant his claims. This gives them a veneer of legitimacy and helps propel the claims into the broader media ecosystem. (More on this tactic below.)

[...]

With crucial parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7, 2026, Armenia has gained the distinction of having overtaken Ukraine as the top target of Storm-1516 influence operations [...] Russia has reason to be concerned. A recent poll by the U.S.-based think tank the International Republican Institute found that Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party maintains a clear lead ahead of the June 2026 vote. However, the outcome remains uncertain, with 43 percent of respondents either undecided or declining to answer.

[...]

“Russia is desperate to prevent Pashinyan from being elected,” Ani Mejlumyan, a Netherlands-based Armenian journalist who reports on disinformation operations in the region, told NewsGuard in a phone interview. “It has a massive network in Armenia … There’s a big fight over undecided voters.”

[...]

Deprem often portrays his work as an honorable vocation and himself as a truth-teller. In the 2022 interview with Diplomat.ru noted above, he said: “I am, first and foremost, a journalist — both by title and by the nature of my work, unequivocally.”

His efforts have earned him some recognition. In 2023, Deprem was given an award from Russian-backed authorities in Luhansk for “a significant personal contribution to communicating the truth about the events in Donbas to the international community,” according to a report in local news site Lugansk 24. He also won an award in 2024 from the Emil Czeczko Foundation, a pro-government Belarusian charity, for his reporting “on the suffering and immense social, humanitarian, and economic devastation experienced by civilians and the local population in the Donbas,” according to the Foundation’s site.

As the Armenian election nears, with Pashinyan persistently leading the polls, Putin’s rhetoric has grown increasingly hostile and ominous. In a May 9, 2026, press conference, Putin warned that Armenia’s turn toward the West poses the same risks as Ukraine’s EU aspirations. “We are currently living through everything that is happening in respect of Ukraine,” Putin said, referring to Armenia, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website. “And how did it start? It started with Ukraine’s joining or attempting to join the EU.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54087138

Archived

[...]

Women who take on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have long been targeted in coordinated, online sexual harassment campaigns. These campaigns are massive in scale and driven by state-linked actors in China, technology companies like Meta and OpenAI have said.

What is new is that some are pushing back by calling out the behavior and publicizing the images. This week Rome-based [human rights activist Laura] Harth went public with the images on the website of her employers, Safeguard Defenders. She told Newsweek that the shame was not hers, but her attackers'.

"I don't identify with these images at all, and I hope that is a taboo we can break. Because that's not you. That's an image of the CCP," Harth said.

As for the people—probably mostly men—running the campaigns: "It's up to you to explain it to your wife," she said.

[...]

Newsweek spoke to four women who are politically active who say they have been the targets of such campaigns. They live in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy.

All were certain that the attacks come from China and increased when they engaged in campaigns or published reports, or coincided with specific events sensitive in the Chinese political calendar, they said. All want the authorities where they live to take action to stop it.

[...]

An expert on intelligence matters told Newsweek that the situation was "classic sex kompromat", a Russian term for material designed to entrap and discredit. One image of Su includes text in Russian.

Women are targeted in this way, because "shame is a very feminine vulnerability," said Nathalie Vogel, a research fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.

Previously, security agencies in repressive regimes such as East Germany or the Soviet Union used doppelgänger, or body doubles, to film or trap people, Vogel said.

"The Stasi [East German secret police] had a formidable collection of look-alikes for such operations," she said.

"But the age of AI has revolutionized the techniques of kompromat," Vogel said.

Canada-based political commentator and CCP critic Zang Xihong uses the online pen name Sheng Xue. She also supplied Newsweek with explicit, fake images.

[...]

Zang said the Canadian authorities failed to help. "I went to the police station, but the police officer said they couldn't do anything, because I am an adult."

In the U.S. the first conviction for creating AI-generated obscene material took place in Ohio in April, following passage of the Take It Down Act last year.

The law to prosecute harmful deepfake images was championed by first lady Melania Trump. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni posted a fake image of herself in lingerie in March to warn about the phenomenon, which she called cyberbullying. Italy legislated against AI deepfakes last year.

"I think that's the best way to deal with it. The law," said Zang. "But to get China to stop, to admit they're doing it, that's very, very difficult."

The harassment works, Zang said. "Attacking women like this is an old tactic. It's one reason why there are relatively few female Chinese dissidents."

[...]

The Kremlin is using allegations of Ukrainian strikes on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to justify a potential escalation of hostilities and intensified long-range attacks against Ukraine, according to a new assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on May 31.

ISW noted that the Russian-installed administration at the ZNPP reported two Ukrainian attacks on the facility on May 30 and 31. According to Russian claims, the first strike damaged the turbine hall of the plant’s sixth power unit, while the second targeted a transport workshop.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53891813

Archived

[The article links to several social media accounts as examples for Chinese propaganda.]

Behind seemingly harmless videos of young Chinese women speaking fluent Greek, sharing everyday moments, cultural stories and cheerful messages about China, a more complex influence operation appears to be taking shape.

A network of Greek-language social media accounts, some officially labelled by Meta as China state-controlled media, has built a significant audience in Greece and Cyprus through polished lifestyle content, paid promotion and a carefully cultivated image of authenticity — while maintaining links to Chinese state media and amplifying narratives favourable to Beijing.

[...]

In the case of China, propaganda on social media platforms such as Facebook often does not appear as political or state-driven communication. Instead, it is channelled through female influencers who show entirely everyday and seemingly authentic moments. One key element is what is known as “role concealment.” Many of these content creators present themselves as travel vloggers, food bloggers, or people simply showing their life in China.

However, in several cases, it has been revealed that they are linked to, or cooperate with Chinese state media. Their content is mainly lifestyle-oriented, but it follows a consistent direction: presenting China in a positive light while avoiding or countering criticism on issues such as human rights.

[...]

The fact that these are often female influencers is not accidental. This particular style of communication is “softer,” more personal, and aims to build trust. Through everyday moments, an emotional tone, and direct contact with the audience, a sense of familiarity is created. Within this framework, even political messages can be easily conveyed and with less resistance.

[...]

This is a more modern form of propaganda, in which state narratives are not conveyed directly by official outlets, but are “dressed up” as personal stories and experiences from people who appear independent and authentic. In reality, they are often employees of state media outlets such as CGTN, Xinhua, and China Radio International.

As an example, two Facebook pages targeting a Greek-speaking audience carry Meta’s official label for “China state-controlled media”. This means that “Meta has labelled this publisher as state-controlled media because it believes that it may be partially or wholly under the editorial control of the state. The assessment is based on various factors, such as funding, organisational structure, and journalistic standards”.

[...]

China has created an extensive network of “influencers” on social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, where journalists and employees of state media outlets such as CGTN, Xinhua, and China Radio International present themselves as independent travel bloggers, lifestyle vloggers, and “life bloggers.” The AP identified, in 2022, dozens of such accounts operating in 38 languages and collectively having more than 10 million followers.

[...]

These influencers build trust as “friends” with excellent knowledge of the local language. They avoid discussion with critics and interact only with positive comments. Microsoft Threat Analysis Center stresses that this tactic is more effective than traditional propaganda because it reaches the audience first, uses “authentic” voices, makes rebuttal harder because it spreads propaganda indirectly, and exploits platforms that often struggle to detect this kind of “grey” content. The two specific reports can be found on the Miburo website, here and here.

Sometimes, these individuals adopt a more serious way of interacting with their audience, for example when they want to comment on geopolitical issues such as American positions on the port of Piraeus in Greece and the control exercised on it by COSCO, the biggest Chinese state-owned shipowner.

[...]

[Social media profiles also advertise] content portraying a highly positive image of life in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. However, there are many reports of serious human rights violations by China in this region, something the profile ignores, as well as reports of attempts to whitewash life and culture in the region.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53814042

Op-ed by Laura Harth, China in the World Director at Safeguard Defenders (SD), a human rights NGO. She is a Belgian citizen and long-time resident of Italy.

Warning: The linked post contains fake explicit sexual imagery.

Archived

In recent weeks, AI-generated sexualized images of me have circulated on social media. I am sharing some of them in this piece. I have nothing to be ashamed of. The pervert in this story is not me.

Democratic governments have decided this kind of imagery is serious. In the United States, First Lady Melania Trump championed the Take It Down Act, signed into federal law in May 2025; the first conviction came down last month. Australia’s Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Act 2024 criminalized the creation and non-consensual sharing of sexual deepfakes, with penalties of up to seven years’ imprisonment; the first guilty plea came down in April this year. France amended its Penal Code in 2024; the UK criminalized both the sharing (2023) and the creation (2026) of sexually explicit deepfakes; South Korea criminalized even the viewing of non-consensual deepfakes. Canada and Spain are in the process of criminalizing the same conduct.

Italy criminalized harmful deepfakes after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was herself targeted. She could defend herself, she said. Many others cannot.

[...]

[Social media platforms] did remove most of the images against me within days.

But time and again, the perpetrator who is creating them is allowed to walk away scot-free, ready to produce the next batch of smears and fabricated accusations.

[...]

It is no secret who is behind these images.

In February 2026, OpenAI named Safeguard Defenders as a target of what it called “industrialized transnational repression from China using AI”, run through an account tied to Chinese law enforcement. The same operators ran a campaign to discredit Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, traced by OpenAI to AI-generated content circulating on X, YouTube and Japanese platforms. Meta has identified the same network - Spamouflage - as the largest covert influence operation in the world and traced it to Chinese law enforcement. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted forty officers of China’s Ministry of Public Security in connection with it.

The European External Action Service classifies China’s conduct as “clearly illegitimate”, aimed at “suppressing information outside its borders”.

[...]

In September 2022, we published the first of two reports exposing over 100 clandestine Chinese “overseas police stations” operating in more than 50 countries - instruments of transnational repression in blatant violation of other nations’ sovereignty. The campaign against us began the same month. It has not stopped.

Over four years, the same regime that demands to be taken seriously as a great power has accused me and my colleagues - men and women alike - of an inventive range of crimes. Affairs with politicians on three continents. Corruption. Working for foreign intelligence. Terrorism. And, in one memorable episode, illegal wildlife hunting.

Sexualized fabrications are also not new: Chinese dissidents have long suffered such abuse. Such campaigns reach our partners, parents, friends. This is what a “global superpower” spends its public security resources on.

[...]

Some may say I am only amplifying Beijing’s smears by republishing some of the graphic images they produced. I sure do not relish these images being out there. But I refuse to give the perverted minds in Beijing the satisfaction of my silence - and yes, these are the same perverted “public security” minds that the country leading last year’s G7 efforts on countering transnational repression signed a Memorandum of Understanding with in January.

[...]

Western governments know all of this. Their own institutions wrote the reports. The response has been not nothing, but not nearly enough. Bravery should not be met with silence when the perpetrator is China.

We have the attributions. We have had them for years. What we need now is concrete action and accountability. None of this requires more evidence. All it requires is political will.

France has neglected to carry forward the G7 momentum on countering transnational repression during its presidency this year. Italy - where I live - is the only G7 country that has not even begun debating response measures.

Prime Minister Meloni, you said deepfakes are a dangerous tool. You said you could defend yourself, and that many others cannot.

Deepfakes are but one of the many tools employed by the communist regime in Beijing - as your government knows all too well, in light of the expulsion of eight Chinese nationals on national security grounds earlier this year.

Prime Minister, transnational repression is as real as these images are fake. Put the issue where it belongs: not in the footnotes, but at the top of the agenda.

Defend us.

[...]

Archived

Posts and headlines circulating online have accused EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas of calling China a “cancer” and making warmongering remarks about Russia and Beijing.

One widely shared post claimed that Kallas “just described China as a ‘disease’, specifically ‘cancer’”, whilst a headline from Brussels Signal read, “EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas calls China a ‘cancer'.”

Separate posts on X, one with millions of views, also attributed the quote “If Europe cannot defeat Russia, how then are we supposed to defeat China?” to the EU’s top diplomat.

But a closer examination of Kallas’ remarks shows that, while the comments could be considered controversial, some online users presented them sensationalised and out of context.

[...]

The first comment was made by Kallas on 17 May during the Lennart Meri Conference held in Estonia. The wide-ranging conversation looked at Europe’s response to China’s growing economic influence, industrial competition and trade practices.

During the exchange, the moderator argued that China was increasingly dominating industries, ranging from batteries and electric vehicles to industrial goods. He added he had not yet seen a "coherent European response to the China challenge."

Kallas replied that countries around the world were increasingly concerned about what she described as China's "coercive economic practices", before turning to a medical metaphor to refer to Europe's response.

“We have a very clear understanding of the diagnosis of the disease, but we don’t have agreement on the cure,” Kallas said.

She continued: “If you have a very, very difficult disease, like you have cancer, then you have two choices — either you increase the morphine or you start chemotherapy.”

Kallas later explained that “morphine” referred to subsidies helping European companies compete against Chinese imports, while “chemotherapy” referred to tougher EU measures that could trigger retaliation from Beijing.

So while critics interpreted the remarks as Kallas portraying China itself as the disease, the bloc’s foreign policy chief did not literally call China a “cancer”, with her comments forming part of a wider discussion about how Europe should respond to Chinese trade pressure and economic competition.

[...]

In separate viral posts, social media users also accused Kallas of “warmongering” by attributing the quote: “If Europe cannot defeat Russia, how then are we supposed to defeat China?” to her.

But a closer inspection of what Kallas said shows she did not use these words.

The comments are actually from a discussion hosted by the Hudson Institute on 27 February 2025, where Kallas discussed transatlantic relationships and the need for Europe to meet current geopolitical challenges with the institute's senior fellow, Peter Rough.

The full clip of the discussion shows Kallas argued that failing to effectively pressure Russia over its war in Ukraine could weaken Western credibility when signalling support to "Asian counterparts" in the event of a conflict involving China.

“China is so much bigger economy than Russia is with so much bigger military than Russia is. So if you’re saying that we collectively are not able to really pressure Russia so much that it would have an effect, then how do you say that you’re able to take on China risk?" Kallas said in the outdated clip presented as new footage.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53763707

Archived

Chongqing, a futuristic Chinese city, has caught the eye of influencers and bloggers. Beijing, meanwhile, welcomes new visitors, often unaware of the geopolitical and ideological currents running beneath their social media posts.

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Chongqing has recently become a social media sensation. Its online popularity has spread like wildfire [and] is helping to shape the country's image among Generation Z, a demographic that gets its information via TikTok and Instagram rather than through traditional media.

TikTok, in particular, has succeeded at making short, looping videos and endless scroll the norm – a format that competing platforms later tried to adopt. Influencers know they have to grab viewers' attention in just a fraction of a second, and the skylines of Dubai and Manhattan were already familiar.

"You need a shock effect on the viewer for the influencer to be promoted by the algorithm," noted Jackson Lu, a local influencer. "New York doesn't surprise anyone anymore, whereas Chongqing offers a new and visually striking backdrop with its verticality and its lights at night." Every week, Lu receives at least one or two requests from influencers planning to come to the city from abroad, eager to find the most unusual places to shoot their photos and videos.

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In the hearts and minds of digital natives, the stunning images of major Chinese achievements – massive bridges, train stations and airports – have begun to replace prior negative perceptions of the country: Wuhan's central market at the start of the Covid-19 years, Uyghurs kneeling in handcuffs during transfers to indoctrination camps and crackdowns against protesters in Hong Kong. "There is a sense of disillusionment; young people tell themselves that Western governments have condemned the human rights situation in China in the past, but that they have not, however, prevented what is happening in Gaza. This is helping people forget the criticism aimed at China, in favor of a narrative focused on its development," observed Paulina Oveckova, a China specialist at the Pragu

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In this context, President Xi Jinping and the entire Chinese diplomatic corps have been hammering home a message aimed at presenting China as a force for stability, in contrast to the US, which they accuse of having upended global energy supplies by attacking Iran with little regard for the consequences. The parade of foreign leaders through the Chinese capital, all of them eager to secure a smooth relationship with Beijing while grappling with the "Donald Trump problem," has further contributed to this image-building effort.

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During his official visit in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the warming of relations with China "put [Canada] in a good position for the new world order." Even Annalena Baerbock, a critical voice regarding China when she served as Germany's foreign minister from 2021 to 2025, has changed her tone since becoming president of the United Nations General Assembly. During her visit to Beijing on April 29, she praised China's "unwavering commitment to the multilateral system," seemingly forgetting the economic and diplomatic support that Beijing has offered Moscow despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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Even though relations between China and Europe remain weighed down by two major issues – the Chinese trade surplus and close ties between China and Russia – Beijing believes in its capacity to win over Europe's digitally connected youth through social media, regardless of the reticence of their governments.

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The turning point for international interest came in the spring of 2025, when an American from Cincinnati, Ohio, Darren Watkins, arrived in China. This 20-year-old, known to his followers as "IShowSpeed," embarked on a two-week livestreamed tour across China, broadcasting for hours each day. He has 54 million followers on Youtube, 51 million on TikTok and 47.9 million on Instagram. Internet users from around the world watched him marvel at Shenzhen's robots in the south, learn lessons from Kung Fu masters at the Shaolin Monastery in the east, and, of course, take in the spectacle of Chongqing.

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The Italian-Senegalese influencer Khaby Lame, who has 161 million followers on TikTok, traveled there in September 2025. YouTuber Drew Binsky, known for having visited every country in the world and followed by 6.9 million people for his videos on unusual places, also visited.

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The Chinese themselves often have a much more nuanced view of their own country. Though they admire the development of infrastructure, street safety and technological progress, they worry about the lack of economic opportunities for younger generations and the lack of sufficient social reforms to address low birth rates.

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By virtue of sheer clicks and views, these influencers serve as a convenient vessel for hiding the topics Beijing doesn't want to be seen.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has welcomed anyone who avoids complicated issues and sticks solely to cultural subjects – kung fu, spicy cuisine, etc. – or who focus only on the positive side of Chinese modernity. "Depoliticizing is in itself a very political act," said Emma Belmonte, host of the China Observers podcast and analyst at the Association for International Affairs, a French foreign policy think tank. "The effort to depoliticize the debate and the representation of China is a strategy. The flood of footage is meant to drown out the narrative that Beijing dislikes."

In other words, images of achievements alone are often enough to convince people of the merits of the Chinese political system that made them possible.

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The effort is particularly visible with Taiwanese youth, whom Beijing has sought to win over by bypassing the much-disliked government in Taipei. Two Taiwanese students told Le Monde that they were invited, with all expenses paid, to visit Hangzhou, an ultramodern city that has boomed thanks to artificial intelligence, and travel through northeastern regions of China where, for the first time, they saw snow-capped mountains. "In some ways, they are more modern than we are," said one of them, Mei, age 21. "In hotels, when you order dinner online, robots take the elevator and deliver the meals left at reception by delivery drivers to the rooms." They were encouraged, but not required, to share what they had done and their impressions of the trip on social media. At no point were they bothered with pressing political questions; instead, the organizers simply allowed the magic of modernity to do its work.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53726783

Archived

The new service, which strengthens the international footprint of France Médias Monde, will produce exclusively in Eastern Armenian, the official language of the Republic of Armenia.

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"Armenian youth, like most young people in the world today, are ultra-connected. Traditional media have been abandoned. So if we want to reach that audience, we have to go through social media," said Astrig Agopian, the desk's editor-in-chief.

The team's primary aim is to inform, narrate the news and verify facts through innovative formats, drawing on correspondents based in-country. Reporter Lilit Shahverdyan, originally from Nagorno-Karabakh, will be deployed to Armenia from the end of May to cover the country's upcoming legislative elections in real time, a posting she described as "a gift from heaven."

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Those elections represent the desk's first major test. Armenia has been at the centre of regional tensions in recent years following the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the vote is already being targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign.

As in Hungary last month, the prospect of closer ties with the European Union is one of the campaign's defining themes, and one Moscow has firmly opposed.

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The launch comes against a backdrop of declining press freedom. Armenia had steadily improved its ranking under former journalist turned prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, climbing from 80th place in the Reporters Without Borders index in 2018 to 34th in 2025, nine places ahead of France. This year, however, the country has dropped back to 50th.

The choice to produce exclusively in Eastern Armenian is deliberate. Of an estimated 12 million Armenians worldwide, only around 3 million live in the Republic of Armenia, a legacy of the mass displacement that followed the Armenian genocide of the early twentieth century.

Diaspora communities have over generations developed their own dialectal variations, meaning Eastern Armenian is not universally spoken across the global community.

[...]