OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian authorities mentioned on Monday it detected a China-linked “Spamouflage” marketing campaign that concerned bots posting disinformation and propaganda on the social media accounts of members of parliament, together with .
The Spamouflage marketing campaign, utilizing networks of recent and hijacked social media accounts to submit bulk messages, passed off in August and September, and focused dozens of MPs from throughout the political spectrum, the overseas ministry mentioned in an announcement.
The messages included accusations in opposition to the MPs of prison and moral violations, a declare that Hawaiian wildfires have been brought on by a secret U.S. navy “climate weapon,” and deepfake movies.
Hundreds of such feedback in English and French have been posted on MPs’ Fb and X accounts, and the federal government labored with the platforms to get the bot networks eliminated.
“This marketing campaign might discourage and make it troublesome for MPs to hold out their duties and should dissuade MPs and diaspora communities in Canada from talking out on points which concern them,” mentioned a overseas ministry report in regards to the incident.
China-Canada relations turned icy in late 2018 when Canadian police detained a Chinese language telecommunications government. Shortly after, Beijing arrested two Canadians on spying expenses. All three have since been launched.
Ottawa has additionally accused Beijing of making an attempt to intervene in its affairs by varied schemes, together with unlawful police stations and the concentrating on of lawmakers. China has strongly denied all such allegations.
In September, the Trudeau authorities introduced an unbiased public inquiry into allegations of tried overseas meddling by China, Russia and others.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Modifying by Richard Chang)
