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Chinese state-affiliated accounts bypass transparency efforts on social media by using cloaked accounts or brands, masking their connections to China’s government bodies. These accounts, which interact on social media platforms as though they were independent entities, are sometimes capable of reaching millions, and even pay to amplify their messages.
Examples of such accounts are legion. “Hi, this is GBA” looks like just a social media influencer on X with more than 85,000 followers, as does “Daily Bae,” which has 1.1 million followers on Facebook. Both are external propaganda brands run by Guangdong province, and clearly identified as such in official media reports.
As [China's president] Xi Jinping speaks of “building a more effective international communication system,” part of the message he conveyed this week during a collective study session of the Politburo, accounts like these, run not just by state media but by provincial and city-level international communication centers (ICCs), are a critical part of the strategy.
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The account “China Says” looks unassuming enough. It has a blue check and nearly 190,000 followers on X. On Facebook, it has 3.9 million followers, and its posts sometimes get millions of views. The bio section for “China Says” on X claims that the account offers “exclusive insights” into China’s foreign policy. At times, these insights appear as paid ads in X feeds like yours and mine. Much of the content on “China Says” focuses on the innocent promotion of local cuisine. But at times the account takes a sharp turn into the political. It regularly hosts explainers, for example, on China’s view of the international political system.
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In fact, “China Says” is operated by the Chinese Internet News Center (中国互联网新闻中心), an institution directly under China’s State Council Information Office (SCIO). The SCIO is essentially the same office as the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department — which means that this “news and media website,” as it is labeled on Facebook, is speaking from the very center of the Chinese party-state. And yet, quite unlike the account for China Daily, also under the SCIO, the account bears no “China state-controlled media” label.
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“China Says” is one cloaked party-state account on X that has made good use of the platform’s marketing system. X Ads offer any account paid promotion for their content over a fixed period of time, allowing posts to maximize exposure — acquiring followers and engagement more quickly. The tool also allows campaigns to target audiences, according to which country they are in and if they have followed certain Twitter accounts.
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The list of those to target also includes anyone following a long list of Chinese X accounts, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, the People’s Daily, CGTN, China Daily, The Paper — and even Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, which in 2015 was bought by Alibaba Group.
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China Says is also a concrete case study on what Xi Jinping meant when he spoke about the "pattern reconstruction of international communication," and about "innovative online external propaganda."
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Be ready for stunning views of stony Tibetan peaks, followed by soft and playful pandas, and then a serving of anti-Western propaganda. It could come at you from anywhere.