Chinese Nationalist Trolls Pretend to Be Trump Supporters Ahead of U.S. Elections
Chinese nationalist trolls have been posing as American supporters of former President Donald Trump on X to try to exploit domestic divisions ahead of the U.S. election. China’s so-called Spamouflage troll network mimics Russia’s playbook during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when Moscow used information warfare to damage the Clinton campaign, boost Trump’s chances and sow distrust in American democracy.
British researchers say Chinese nationalist trolls have been posing as American supporters of former President Donald Trump on X to try to exploit domestic divisions ahead of the U.S. election.
A report released April 1 by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London think tank, says it found four previous Mandarin-tweeting accounts that went silent before re-emerging as American Trump supporter personas tweeting in English.
It linked them to China’s so-called Spamouflage network, which it described as a “long-running and widespread but largely ineffective” campaign to promote pro-Chinese Communist Party narratives.
But Elise Thomas, a senior researcher at the institute and author of the report, said pretending to be Trump supporters is a fresh and more effective tactic.
“They are posing convincingly as Americans, specifically Trump supporters,” she told VOA. “They are getting engagement from what look like real American users. That’s significantly different from what we’ve seen with Spamouflage in the past.”
She pointed out that a traditional Spamouflage tweet might have many likes and retweets, but upon further examination, it’s all from other Spamouflage accounts. Now, they are interacting with predominantly genuine American users.
“What they are doing that is quite different from other Spamouflage accounts is that they are building up authentic audiences using this thing called patriot follow trains, which is basically where people agree to mutually follow one another in order to each build their own follower accounts,” Thomas explained.
Using real viral videos and photos, these accounts seek to amplify divisive issues such as LGBTQ rights, immigration, race, gun control and crime rates.
Some of the accounts mock Biden’s age; others falsely claim that Biden is a pedophile. All seem to be promoting Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again (MAGA),” leading the report to dub this new tactic “MAGAflage.”
One of the X accounts, Ben MAGA 2024, was opened in 2010, but previous posts have been deleted. Since April 18, 2023, the account began to tweet in English with a main theme: Biden is a pedophile and cannot be trusted.
The account tries to build a persona as an American living in Los Angeles. It posted a picture in January with the caption “Good morning! Patriots, I’m 43 years old, and passionately and loyally supporting President Trump!”
In fact, the picture belongs to a travel blog by a Danish man with no indication that he’s a Trump supporter.
