the Chinese Communists Interfere in Our Elections // (John Hinderaker).
Forbes offers a report about how Chinese state media use TikTok in an attempt to influence American elections. It is far more than the piddling effort made by the Russians a few cycles back.
TikTok accounts, run by the propaganda arm Chinese government, have amassed millions of followers and tens to millions of views. Many of these views are on videos editorializing about U.S. Politics without clear disclosure that they were posted from a foreign government.
This is far more than the 2016 social media purchase made by the Russians.
MediaLinks TV manages the accounts. It is a registered foreign agent and Washington D.C.-based outpost for China Central Television, the main Chinese Communist Party television news outlet. The largest accounts are @Pandaorama which features cute videos about Chinese culture and @The…Optimist which posts about sustainability and @NewsTokss which covers U.S. national news and international news.
What does the Chinese Communist Party do about the millions of American TikTok users? It tries to swing the elections towards the Democrats.
The @NewsTokss account was critical of some candidates (mostly Republicans) and supportive of others (mostly Democrats) in the lead-up to 2022 elections. A July video began with the caption “Cruz and Abbott Don’t Care about Us.” A October video was captioned “Rubio has done absolutely nothing.” However, @NewsTokss didn’t just target Republicans. Another October video asked viewers if they believed President Joe Biden’s promise of signing a bill codifying abortion rights was a “political manipulation tactic.” These videos did not reveal to viewers that they were being pushed or influenced by a foreign government.
These screen shots are included in the Forbes article:
The Chinese also attempt to incite hostility among Americans by repeating liberal talking points.
Today’s most popular NewsTokss videos are mainly focused on divisive U.S. issues like abortion and guns. These topics were also used by Russian election meddlers to divide Americans and weaken their confidence in democratic institutions. These topics were also discussed earlier this year by fake Instagram and Facebook accounts linked to a China election influence operation.
***
@NewsTokss posted six videos on that day. Four were about mass shootings (one is captioned “A Uniquely America Plague”) and two were about police officers killing an unarmed Black male.
This is a major news story. It would be, at least, if the Democratic Party, and (to reiterate) America’s news outlets, were not in the pockets of the Chinese Communist Party.
