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Chinese trolls and False news websites have attacked the BBC in an attempt to undermine its credibility, according to a new study published today. The online operation linked to the Communist Party of China (CCP) appears to be a response to the BBC’s report on human rights violations. against the Uighur Muslims and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.
The new research Analysts at cybersecurity company Recorded Future say the “probably state-sponsored” operation has used hundreds of websites and social media accounts to report to the BBC. In particular, the network has accused the BBC of adding a “filter” to reports from China to make the country look sad and inanimate.
The propaganda campaign says the BBC used a “dark filter” or “underground filter” and has promoted that view a lot, says Charity Wright, a threat intelligence analyst who conducted research at Recorded Future’s Insikt Group. “What struck me the hardest was the scope of this campaign: how big it was, and we found the number and volume of posts for this particular narrative,” says Wright. Social media posts, malware-containing websites, and official spokesmen have pushed for the idea of gloom or underground filters, Wright added.
Recorded Future researchers cited several reasons to ensure that the campaign is backed by the Chinese state. The volume of activity, a clear anti-BBC narrative, consistent with PCK policy, “coordination between state-sponsored media apparatuses in China” and the use of Mandarin and foreign language content contributed to his decision. “Aligning the campaign with the objectives of the PCK creates a clear picture of how the PCK is conducting large-scale information operations to criticize and censor foreign media,” the study concluded.
The operation appears to be part of a broader crackdown due to unfair criticism from Chinese media by international officials. In February, BBC World News it was banned from broadcasting in China.
Recorded Future research shows the hidden side of China’s attack on the UK’s national media. In recent weeks, the cybersecurity company has identified 57 websites promoting the narrative that the BBC has changed images of China, Wright says. “What I saw was a lot of podcast interviews and the photos of the BBC denouncing this activity were taking place on very indefinite random websites,” says Wright. “Some of them are related to adware and malware. Then it looks like Chinese or English news websites. He explained that the details of the “darkness filter” on the sites were often a paragraph of text among other stories. “It was the same story over and over again, which made this campaign very easy to identify. it was not ”.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In the last six months, mandarins have had more than 11,000 references to the “dark filter” on social media, and more than half have come in the last 30 days, Recorded Future found. English mentions of the “BBC underworld filter” have also risen in the last six weeks. More than 56,300 phrases have been used on eight different social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Weibo, WeChat, Bilibili, Douyin).
Some accounts used photos of generic profiles, such as images of animals or the countryside, Wright says, given that the accounts worked in groups. “There were five or ten accounts helping each other [in some instances] and what they have seen with these types of campaigns in the past is that they want to target English-speaking Western audiences, “says Wright.” They also want to target the Chinese diaspora around the world. ” respond to a request for comment.
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