Canada: Canada has reported a disinformation campaign led by China that has targeted dozens of its politicians, including Prime Minister Mr. Justin Trudeau.
The Foreign Ministry noted that the “spamouflage” campaign used waves of online posts to discredit Canadian MPs. Earlier, China denied any allegations of interference in Canadian affairs.
Global Affairs Canada revealed that its Rapid Response Mechanism, which was set up to monitor foreign state-sponsored disinformation efforts, detected a “spamouflage” campaign in August connected with China.
According to the department, the campaign featured a bot network that “left thousands of comments” in Canada’s two official languages, English and French, on the social media accounts of several Canadian politicians.
The statement claimed that a critic of the Chinese Communist Party in Canada had accused the various politicians of criminal and ethical breaches.
“The Spamouflage campaign also included the use of likely ‘deep fake’ videos, which are digitally modified by artificial intelligence, targeting the individual,” Global Affairs Canada noted.
A “spamouflage” campaign is one that uses a network of new or hijacked social media accounts to post propaganda messages across various platforms, such as Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Medium, Reddit, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
According to officials, those same accounts were also involved in spreading disinformation about the Hawaii wildfires in August, falsely claiming that they were caused by a secret US military “weather weapon.” The campaign also targeted Conservative opposition leader Mr. Pierre Polievre and several members of Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet.
Global Affairs Canada further commented that it has notified the affected social media platforms about the posts, “resulting in much of the activity and network being removed”. The department added that it has also alerted the affected politicians and given them advice on how to protect themselves and how to report any “suspected foreign interference activity.”
MOST READ | China coast guard hit Philippine vessel in South China Sea; Manila
