Spamouflage
Chinese government online influence operation
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| October 2024 | The Washington Post reported Spamouflage targeting specific U.S. politicians like Representative Barry Moore, Marco Rubio, Michael McCaul, and Marsha Blackburn with denigrating content due to their criticism of the Chinese government. |
| September 2024 | Graphika reported Chinese Spamouflage operations using fake social media users on X and TikTok to manipulate public opinion, targeting political candidates and spreading divisive narratives about social issues. |
| August 2023 | Meta released a threat report highlighting Spamouflage network's activities matching Chinese office hours and showing coordinated activity across multiple platforms. |
| August 2023 | Jack Stubbs from Graphika reported finding open source evidence potentially linking the Chinese group indicted by the DOJ to Spamouflage, though with limited confidence. |
| July 2023 | Spamouflage began targeting actual Americans with posts about divisive political issues in preparation for the 2024 United States presidential election, including spreading conspiracy theories and Russian disinformation. |
| 2022 | Mandiant report revealed Spamouflage accounts called for protests against proposed rare earth mines in the United States and Canada, targeting strategic mineral production. |
| April 2021 | Mandiant reported Spamouflage accounts called for protests in New York City against Li-Meng Yan, Guo Wengui, and Steve Bannon, claiming to expose COVID-19 'rumors', though no actual protests were confirmed. |
| February 2021 | Graphika report noted Spamouflage shifted from criticizing Trump and Mike Pompeo to criticizing Biden after his inauguration, with a focus on spreading narratives about 'China's rise and America's fall'. |
| 2020 | Graphika stated they were unable to definitively determine the relationship between Spamouflage and the Chinese government. |
| 2020 | Spamouflage accounts made posts criticizing Donald Trump in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, actions against China, and the George Floyd protests, with videos of poor quality and few authentic views. |
| 2019 | Graphika researcher Ben Nimmo speculated that amateurs or a private firm might be behind the Spamouflage campaign. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Spamouflage, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.