#WhatIsDemocracy: finding key actors in a Chinese influence campaign

Abstract

AbstractThe rapid increase in China’s outward digital presence on western social media platforms highlights China’s priorities for promoting pro-Chinese narratives and stories in recent years. Simultaneously, China has increasingly been accused of launching information operations using bot activity, puppet accounts, and other inauthentic activity to amplify its messaging. This paper provides a comprehensive network analysis characterization of the hashtag influence campaign China promoted against the US-hosted Summit on Democracy in December 2021, in addition to methods to identify different types of actors within this type of influence campaign. China uses layers of state-sponsored accounts, bots, and non-bot accounts to promote its messaging. Lastly, we describe how China uses localized campaigns under a more extensive umbrella campaign for information diffusion toward targeted audiences.