Image source,Getty Images
Facebook’s parent company’s Meta platform deleted more than 500 accounts that involved false information and claimed that the dissemination of false information was related to a Chinese technology company.
These accounts spread claims of a fake Swiss biologist named “Wilson Edwards” who claimed that the United States was intervening in the traceability of the new crown virus. His remarks were widely reprinted by Chinese official media. But the Swiss Embassy previously stated that this person does not exist.
Facebook has also deleted accounts from China before. For example, in Hong Kong’s “Return to Send” campaign in 2019, some information and pictures that exaggerated the handling of the violent actions of Hong Kong protesters were deleted. In September 2020, hundreds of accounts accused of interfering in the US presidential election were deleted.
What the investigation found
Meta said in a report released in November that this social media promotion campaign was “essentially unsuccessful,” targeting English-speaking audiences in the United States and the United Kingdom, and Chinese-language audiences in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet.
In early July, an account claiming to be the Swiss biologist Wilson Edwards issued a statement on Facebook and Twitter saying that the United States was putting pressure on WHO scientists studying the origin of the new crown to try to blame China for the virus.
Official media such as China Global Television Network (CGTN), Shanghai Daily and Global Times cited the so-called biologist based on information on Facebook.
However, the Swiss Embassy stated in August that this person probably did not exist because his Facebook account was opened two weeks before the first post was posted and only had three friends.
The Swiss Embassy also stated that “there is no registration of a Swiss citizen named Wilson Edwards, and no academic articles signed by that name exist”, and urged Chinese media to delete content mentioning him.
According to the report, after investigating the incident, it was found that the promotion was “related to individuals in mainland China, including employees of Sichuan Silent Information Technology Co., Ltd… and individuals associated with Chinese state-owned infrastructure companies around the world.”
What is the background of Sichuan Silent Information Company
According to the official website of Sichuan Silent Information, the company is a “high-tech enterprise dedicated to technical research, product development and technical services in the field of network and information security”, providing technical support for the Ministry of Public Security of China and the China National Internet Emergency Response Center (CNCERT) . CNCERT is a key team coordinating China’s cybersecurity emergency response.
The company is headquartered in Chengdu High-tech Zone, Sichuan Province, and has branches in Beijing, Chongqing, Guiyang, Yunnan, Tibet, Northwest, Jiangxi and other places. The company currently has more than 200 employees, of which 75% are technicians.
The company has repeatedly won excellent results in China’s cyber security competitions, which specifically mentioned the “Guardian-2018” key information infrastructure network offensive and defensive exercise by the Ministry of Public Security of China.
The company was also selected as a network security demonstration project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China last year. Its system “utilizes big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies to provide enterprises and institutions with Internet sensitive information exposure monitoring services through SaaS.”
Meta said it has not found any connections between the company and the Chinese government.
Image source,Getty Images
In the past two years, China’s false account group operations on Facebook and other major foreign social media have been investigated and disclosed many times, which has aroused the vigilance of other countries.
Delete account action
Meta said that after investigating public reports surrounding the fake Swiss biologist, it has deleted 524 accounts, 20 pages, 4 groups and 86 Instagram accounts.
In terms of Facebook page attention, about 72,000 accounts have followed one or more of these pages, and about 10 accounts have followed one or more groups. On Instagram, about 2,000 accounts have followed one or more pages.
Meta said that the character’s initial post was shared and liked by fake accounts, and was later reposted by real users, mostly employees of China’s state-owned infrastructure companies, which are located in more than 20 countries.
The statement also said that this operation used the infrastructure of a virtual personal network (VPN) to hide its source and give Edwards a more comprehensive personal style. Meta also said that the person’s avatar also appeared to be generated through machine learning.
The advertising expenditures of these deleted accounts on the two platforms did not exceed $5,000.
Investigations on the traceability of the new coronavirus have been the source of tension between the United States, China and other countries. The source of the virus is still unclear nearly two years after it was first discovered.