Understanding the Communist Party of China's Information Operations

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the tactics of the Communist Party of China's recent Twitter information operation, revealing manual efforts, mixed messaging, and amplification strategies rather than original content creation.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of the Chinese Communist Party's Twitter operation, highlighting manual tactics, content mixing, and amplification rather than original messaging.

Findings

Operation was partially manual, not fully automated.

Mixed content included personal attacks and COVID-19 messages.

Network amplified external content rather than creating original messages.

Abstract

The Communist Party of China is known to engage in Information Operations to influence public opinion. In this paper, we seek to understand the tactics used by the Communist Party in a recent Information Operation - the one conducted to influence the narrative around the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. We use a Twitter dataset containing account information and tweets for the operation. Our research shows that the Hong Kong operation was (at least) partially conducted manually by humans rather than entirely by automated bots. We also show that the Communist Party mixed in personal attacks on Chinese dissidents and messages on COVID-19 with the party's views on the protests during the operation. Finally, we conclude that the Information Operation network in the Twitter dataset was set up to amplify content generated elsewhere rather than to influence the narrative with original content.