The number of fake accounts squelched in the third quarter of 2023 is 4,789.
According to Meta’s Third Quarter Adversarial Threat Report, “in Q3’2023” the company “removed 4,789 Facebook accounts in China that targeted the United States and posed as Americans across different platforms to post about US politics and US-China relations. We removed this network before it was able to gain engagement from authentic communities on our apps.”
Representatives of the Chinese government endlessly complain about foreign interference in Chinese affairs, or what they call interference. But China of course has no problem with its own interfering in the affairs of other countries.
Chinese officials are being hypocritical, says Tom Rogan, who further observes that the flimsy Facebook incursion is just one of many of China’s own interference campaigns (“China’s infernal internal affairs hypocrisy,” Washington Examiner, December 1, 2023).
The Chinese Communist Party insists, ad infinitum, that it never interferes in the internal affairs of other nations. Party officials insist that United States officials are thus acting outrageously when they criticize China on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the plight of the Uyghur people.
As with so many of its claims, China’s contention here is an utter fiction.
The reality is China has a rapacious appetite for interfering in the internal affairs of other nations. It does so by stealing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of other nations’ intellectual property each year. It does so when it sends warships to seize waters within the exclusive economic zones of other nations. It does so when it funds sympathetic foreign politicians and harasses those it views as problematic. It does so via the operation of secret police stations abroad, which deploy officers on intimidation missions. It does so by attempting to influence the outcome of foreign elections in its favor.
Yes, Chinese officials are guilty of chronic hypocrisy and lying. These sins are somewhere near the bottom of the list of their sins, however. If Chinese propaganda were more open and honest about all the crimes that the Chinese state is committing, it would still be committing all those crimes.
“Interference” or “foreign interference” is too broad a category to permit either blanket endorsement of or blanket opposition to every action that might be called “interference” by someone who doesn’t want you to look at details. There’s a difference between interfering by thwarting the commission of a crime and interfering by picking fights with other countries or by incarcerating innocent persons in reeducation camps characterized by brainwashing, torture, rape, and murder. And contrary to the implications of Chinese propaganda, letting functionaries of the Chinese state dominate and destroy just as they like is not the very meaning and purpose of morality and justice.
Also see:
Meta: “Third Quarter Adversarial Threat Report Q3 2023”
“We removed 4,789 Facebook accounts for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. This network originated in China and targeted the United States. The individuals behind this activity used basic fake accounts with profile pictures and names copied from elsewhere on the internet to post and befriend people from around the world. Only a small portion of such friends were based in the United States. They posed as Americans to post the same content across different platforms.”
StopTheChinazis.org: “China’s Separatism From Facts”
“A belligerent country intent on picking a fight with another country may be eager to be offended by any little thing and call it an unconscionable provocation. With respect to Taiwan, a country that has never been part of the People’s Republic of China, the casus belli in the minds and propaganda of Chinese government officials is something called ‘separatism.’ ”
