Chinese social media campaigns are successfully impersonating U.S. voters, Microsoft warns
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech in Beijing, China, April 24, 2023.
Xinhua News Agency | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
Chinese state-aligned influence and disinformation campaigns are impersonating U.S. voters and targeting political candidates on multiple social media platforms with improved sophistication, Microsoft said in a threat analysis report Thursday.
“CCP-affiliated covert influence operations have now begun to successfully engage with target audiences on social media to a greater extent than previously observed,” according to the report, which focused on the rise in “digital threats from East Asia.”
The Microsoft report also cautioned that some Chinese influence campaigns are now using generative A.I. to create visual content that’s “already drawn higher levels of engagement from authentic” users, a trend the company said began around March.
Chinese influence campaigns have historically struggled to gain traction with intended targets, who in this case are U.S. voters and residents. But since the 2022 midterm elections, those efforts have become more effective, Microsoft warned.
Policymakers and industry experts have expressed concern about foreign influence campaigns on social media platforms, especially on X, formerly known as Twitter. In December, three Democratic House members asked X owner Elon Musk to provide information about manipulation campaigns on the platform.
Microsoft found content from Chinese influence campaigns on multiple apps, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, and X. In August, Facebook parent Meta announced it had disrupted the largest ever identified disinformation campaign and linked it to China state-affiliated actors.
Microsoft’s report included screenshots of two different X posts in April that were identified as CCP-affiliated disinformation. Both were about the Black Lives Matter movement and had the same graphic. The first came from an automated CCP-affiliated account. The second, Microsoft said, was uploaded by an account impersonating a conservative U.S. voter seven hours later.
The operations identified by Microsoft shared hallmarks with one allegedly run by an elite group within China’s national security apparatus, the company said. That organization, the 912 Special Working Group, was identified by the Justice Department in April as perpetrating a harassment campaign targeting Chinese nationals across the U.S. The government charged 44 defendants, including 34 officers from China’s Ministry of Public Security.
WATCH: China has modernized its cyberspace offensive more than any country
Technology
Trump advisor Navarro rips Apple’s Tim Cook for not moving production out of China fast enough
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro chastised Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday over the company’s response to pressure from the Trump administration to make more of its products outside of China.
“Going back to the first Trump term, Tim Cook has continually asked for more time in order to move his factories out of China,” Navarro said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “I mean it’s the longest-running soap opera in Silicon Valley.”
CNBC has reached out to Apple for comment on Navarro’s criticism.
President Donald Trump has in recent months ramped up demands for Apple to move production of its iconic iPhone to the U.S. from overseas. Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has increasingly boosted production in India, partly to avoid the higher cost of Trump’s tariffs.
Trump in May warned Apple would have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the U.S. In separate remarks, Trump said he told Cook, “I don’t want you building in India.”
Analysts and supply chain experts have argued it would be impossible for Apple to completely move iPhone production to the U.S. By some estimates, a U.S.-made iPhone could cost as much as $3,500.
Navarro said Cook isn’t shifting production out of China quickly enough.
“With all these new advanced manufacturing techniques and the way things are moving with AI and things like that, it’s inconceivable to me that Tim Cook could not produce his iPhones elsewhere around the world and in this country,” Navarro said.
Apple currently makes very few products in the U.S. During Trump’s first term, Apple extended its commitment to assemble the $3,000 Mac Pro in Texas.
In February, Apple said it would spend $500 billion within the U.S., including on assembling some AI servers.
WATCH: Apple’s $500 billion investment: For AI servers not manufacturing iPhones
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