Microsoft warned that Chinese state-affiliated actors are successfully impersonating United States voters.
In a Microsoft threat intelligence report published on Thursday, the organization warned of the increased abilities of Chinese and North Korean state actors to disrupt the U.S. and its allies. The report paid particular notice to Chinese social media campaigns, finding that they had gained the ability to impersonate U.S. voters and exert influence on the U.S. electoral system.
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“Chinese online influence campaigns have long relied on sheer volume to reach users through networks of inauthentic social media accounts,” the report said. “Since 2022, however, China-aligned social media networks have engaged directly with authentic users on social media, targeted specific candidates in content about U.S. elections, and posed as American voters.”
This new tactic was first observed ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Several behaviors tipped Microsoft off about the users’ status as Chinese agents, such as “accounts posting in Mandarin in their early stages before switching to another language, engaging with content from other China-aligned assets immediately after posting, and using a ‘seed and amplifier’ pattern of interaction.”
Despite the recognizable pattern, the users showed some sophistication, departing from previous behaviors that made them more obvious.
“Unlike earlier [influence operation] campaigns from CCP-affiliated actors that used easy-to-spot computer-generated handles, display names and profile pictures, these more sophisticated accounts are operated by real people who employ fictitious or stolen identities to conceal the accounts’ affiliation with the CCP,” the report said.
The behavior of the accounts has caused Microsoft to believe the users are an elite group within the Chinese Ministry of Public Security called the 912 Special Project Working Group. The group is known to operate a troll farm and create fake online personas to target pro-democracy users.
Although the new fake accounts are more sophisticated than previous iterations, weaknesses remain. An example Microsoft provided of a Chinese operative posing as a U.S. conservative voter showed a post with confusing and inauthentic-sounding wording that a real U.S. social media account would be unlikely to use.
“America would not exist without the long work of the black people. I think Biden is very extreme. In the coming days, if the black people continue to be discriminated against, whoever caused it will pay the price,” the example post read.
The text was posted with a Black Lives Matter graphic with similarly confusing wording, saying, “Most black people are killed by police in the name of traffic safety.” The graphic had been uploaded by a more obvious automated CCP-linked account just hours earlier.
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The Microsoft report also noted that the Chinese impersonators have begun utilizing artificial intelligence-generated images to boost their reach. An example image shows an imposing-looking Statue of Liberty holding a torch and gun, with one of its hands having more than five fingers, along with the strange text, “Democratic and freedoms … Everything is being thrown away … The Goddess of Violence.”
China isn’t alone in its influence operation campaigns, with Russia and even pro-U.S. actors being found doing the same in the past. Last year, X and Meta took down a sprawling network of accounts involved in a covert pro-U.S. propaganda campaign targeting the Middle East and Central Asia. It is unknown whether the network was connected to U.S. intelligence.
