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China 50cent Army

  • Type: apt

  • Name: China 50cent Army

  • Id: I00033

  • Summary: 50cent Army is a CCP “tool” - “massive secret operation” in China pumping out an estimated 488 million fabricated social media posts per year, part of an effort to “regularly distract the public and change the subject” from any policy-related issues that threaten to anger citizens enough to turn them out onto the streets. But the research finds no evidence these 50-centers are, in fact, paid 50 cents, nor does it find they engage in direct and angry argument with their opponents. Instead, they are mostly bureaucrats already on the public payroll, responding to government directives at a time of heightened tension to flood social media with pro-government cheerleading.

  • Year started: 2014.0

  • From country / To country: China / China

  • Found via: OII

  • Date added: 2019-02-24

  • Techniques used:

Technique Description given for this incident
T0002 Facilitate State Propaganda I00033T005 facilitate state propaganda and defuse crises
T0047 Muzzle social media as a political force I00033T004 cow online opinion leaders into submission, muzzling social media as a political force
T0048 Cow online opinion leaders I00033T004 cow online opinion leaders into submission, muzzling social media as a political force
T0049 Flooding I00033T001 2,000,000 people (est.) part of state run/sponsored astroturfing
T0050 Cheerleading domestic social media ops I00033T003 domestic social media influence operations focus primarily on “cheerleading” or presenting or furthering a positive narrative about the Chinese state
T0051 Fabricate social media comment I00033T002 fabricated social media comment

DO NOT EDIT ABOVE THIS LINE - PLEASE ADD NOTES BELOW

Actor: China

Timeframe: 2011

Date:

Presumed goals:

  • Commentators’ duty to guide public opinion in a “constructive” way and engage the internet as “an important battlefield of ideology.” The vice minister of public security said that the police should use microblogs as a communication platform to “release correct information and dispel misunderstandings.”
  • Accounts describing the operations of progovernment commentators that have emerged in recent years indicate that they are also involved in identifying and recommending content for deletion. Other testimonies highlight the fact that the posts do not only praise or support the CCP and government policy, but also target government critics with negative remarks. Other forms of misdirection involve deliberate attempts to muddy the facts of a particular incident—for example, a false eyewitness can contradict the account of a netizen reporting a case of police abuse.
  • The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2,000,000 people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called “50c party” posts vociferously argue for the government’s side in political and policy debates.

Method:

  • Astroturfing: “surreptitiously post large numbers of fabricated social media comments, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary Chinese people"
  • Cow online opinion leaders into submission
  • Bombard Taiwan social media (Facebook, twitter, chat groups) with ani-DPP, anti-Tsai content.

Counters:

Related incidents:

Notes:

(Recorded Future) The term “Great Firewall” was coined in a June 1997 Wired magazine article in which an anonymous Communist Party official stated that the firewall was “designed to keep Chinese cyberspace free of pollutants of all sorts, by the simple means of requiring ISPs [internet service providers] to block access to ‘problem’ sites abroad.”

Our research focused on the English-language social media activity of six major state-run propaganda organizations from October 1, 2018 through January 21, 2019, which included over 40,000 posts. We selected these six organizations — Xinhua, People’s Daily, China Global Television (CGTN), China Central Television (CCTV), China Plus News, and the Global Times — because they: Are highly digitized; Possess accounts on multiple English language social media platforms; Are associated with Chinese intelligence agencies and/or English language propaganda systems

Because our intent was to map out Chinese state-run influence campaigns targeting the American public, we evaluated only English language posts and comments, as the posts in Chinese were unlikely to affect most Americans. Further, our research focused on answering two fundamental questions about Chinese influence operations: Does China employ the same influence tactics in the English-language social media space as it does domestically? How do Chinese state-run influence operations differ from Russian ones? In what ways are they similar and different, and why?

The information-control regime in China has evolved to include a dizzying array of techniques, technologies, and resources: Blocking traffic via IP address and domain; Mobile application bans; Protocol blocking, specifically Virtual Private Network protocols and applications; Filtering and blocking keywords in domains (URL filtering); Resetting TCP connections; Packet filtering; Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks (the so-called Great Cannon); Man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks; Search engine keyword filtering; Government-paid social media commenters and astroturfers; Social media account blocking, topic filtering, content censorship; State-run media monopoly and censorship; Social Credit System; Mandatory real-name account registration;

This tool set, combined with the now-ubiquitous mass physical surveillance systems, place China at the forefront of integrating information technology, influence operations, surveillance, and censorship in a model referred to by two scholars from MERICS as “IT-based authoritarianism.”

In addition to the constraints imposed by the Great Firewall and content censorship, the Chinese state also employs a series of active disinformation and distortion measures to influence domestic social media users. One of the most widely studied has been the so-called “50 Cent Party.” The 50 Cent Party is a group of people hired by the Chinese government to “surreptitiously post large numbers of fabricated social media comments, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary Chinese people.” The name is derivative of a rumor that these fake commentators were paid 50 Chinese cents per comment (this has been largely disproven). This fabrication of social media comments and sentiment is largely known by the term “astroturfing.” Among scholars of the Chinese domestic social media environment, there is much disagreement regarding what the goals or objectives of government-paid astroturfers are. One study by professors at Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Diego, published in April 2017, determined that one in every 178 social media posts are fabricated by the government and that comments and campaigns are focused and directed against specific topics or issues. Additionally, these scholars have assessed that domestic social media influence operations focus primarily on “cheerleading” or presenting or furthering a positive narrative about the Chinese state. Conversely, a separate set of scholars at the University of Michigan, who also examined posts from the 50 Cent Party astroturfers, determined that at least one in every six posts on Chinese domestic social media was fabricated by the government. Further, these scholars argued that less than 40 percent of astroturfed comments could be classified as “cheerleading” and that the rest were a combination of vitriol, racism, insults, and rage against events or individuals. They additionally argue that censors and state-sponsored influence campaigns focus much of their resources on “opinion leaders” and users with large numbers of followers as opposed to simply intervening based on content.

Chinese government has used a combination of muscle and guile to cow online opinion leaders into submission, muzzling social media as a political force, and leaching public dialogue of much of its independence. But beneath the peppy, pablum-filled surface that has resulted, Chinese social media remains a contested space.

(Taiwan election) Tsai futilely urged Taiwanese citizens to see Beijing’s effort for what it was — a Russian-style influence campaign. The island’s 23 million citizens were bombarded with anti-Tsai and anti-DPP content through Facebook, Twitter and online chat groups, promoted by China’s “50-cent army” of paid social media trolls. There are also dozens of investigations into allegations that Chinese money went to fund Taiwanese candidates opposing Tsai and the DPP. After the elections, Chinese state media pointed to Tsai’s losses as evidence that her tough stance vis-à-vis China was unpopular and wrongheaded. Beijing’s overall goal is to replace her with a more malleable leader in Taipei as part of its broad effort to exert control over Taiwan and weaken Taipei’s relationships with the international community. The Chinese government is bribing or coercing foreign governments to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan, pressuring them to evict Taiwan from international organizations. Beijing is also threatening foreign companies unless they literally erase Taiwan from their websites. Their ultimate goal is to dissolve the U.S.-Taiwan partnership and subjugate the island to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

There are numerous agencies sponsoring internet commentators, including local propaganda offices, ministries and even schools and state-owned enterprises. For instance, China’s largest oil and gasoline producer, Sinopec, was found to be running an astroturfing campaign justifying rising gasoline prices in 2011 (Wang 2011). The following excerpt from a recruiting flyer from the Propaganda Department of the Zhengding Party Committee, Hebei, provides an example of what online commentators are expected to do (Zhonggong Zhengding Xianwei Xuanchuanbu 2009): compose original postings and carry out positive publicity online to promote the priorities and major deployments of the party committee and the government; release authoritative information on major incidents to hinder the spread of rumours and ensure correct direction of online opinion; answer questions and clarify confusion for netizens on hotbutton incidents, interpret the policies of and measures taken by the party and the government and divert netizens’ emotions; strengthen information management on the internet and tightly integrate the analysis of online opinion, disposing of harmful information and guiding online opinion.

These instructions show that besides monitoring public opinion, the primary mission for online commentators is to facilitate state propaganda and defuse crises. In online propaganda campaigns, commentators work to attract public attention and fabricate an audience, if necessary.

“American Cent Party” (美分党) who express western democratic values and criticize the Chinese communist regime online, and the “internet water army” (网络水军), which refers to for-hire astroturfers working for and advancing the interests of companies and other actors willing to pay their fees. Prominent dissident Ai Weiwei said “If you oppose the US and Japan [online], you are a member of the 50 cents army” (Strafella and Berg, 2015). 50c party members “combat hostile energy,” defined as posts that “go against socialist core values,” or “are not amenable to the unity of the people.” Such information should be “resolutely resisted, proactively refuted, and eagerly reported to Internet authorities.” 4 (Haley, 2010). Through active engagement of opposition views, they try to “sway public opinion” (Editors, 2016; Jason Ng, 2011), “influence public opinion. . . pretending to be ordinary citizens and defending or promoting the government’s point of view” (O. Lam, 2013), or “steer conversations in the right direction” (Editors, 2013). Estimates by journalists of the size of the 50c party is between 500,000 to 2 million (Philipp, 2015).

References: