《TAIPEI TIMES》 Expert flags China online poll scheme

A composite image shows social media accounts sharing the same posts. Photo courtesy of a reader

COGNITIVE WARFARE: Pro-China accounts often pose as pro-Taiwan voices to build credibility before shifting messaging at critical moments, a lawmaker said

/ Staff writer, with CNA A cybersecurity expert has warned of a coordinated social media disinformation campaign, suspected to be a Chinese psychological warfare exercise designed to build networks for manipulating information and influencing this year’s local elections.

Voting is scheduled for Nov. 28 to elect mayors and city councilors in the special municipalities of Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as county commissioners, mayors, councilors, and township mayors in the other 16 administrative regions.

The expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, raised an alert yesterday after discovering a flood of outdated news posts on Facebook on Monday.

He said three types of posts, which read: “Presidential alerts suddenly went off,” “Kaohsiung City issued an emergency announcement,” and “Kaohsiung City urgently announces school/work cancelations,” appeared across 163 Facebook fan pages within a brief period.

At one point, 14 pages simultaneously carried the same post, while 34 of 383 posts appeared within five minutes, averaging one every 10 seconds, the expert said.

He added that the regularity of the pattern suggested scheduled operations by a single backend system using a fixed list of accounts, rather than posts generated by humans.

Examining the Facebook fan pages, the expert found that the administrators of 154 pages were mostly based in places such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and China, with a few in Taiwan.

He said the operation was likely tied to Qinhuangdao, China, pointing to data such as posting patterns, administrator origins and traffic-funneling structures.

The Boundless Group has repeatedly been linked to election-related information operations in Taiwan, according to studies by the government-backed Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology, and Reporters Without Borders （RSF） in Taiwan.

Over the past few years, the Boundless Group has employed artificial intelligence to rewrite Chinese articles into Taiwan-style traditional Chinese, spreading them via ostensibly non-political fan pages, the expert said.

The accounts attract followers with lifestyle content, but switch to political messaging during elections, raising concerns ahead of Taiwan’s elections, he added.

When reached for comment, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu （王定宇） yesterday said the case is not isolated.

He said that Beijing-linked IT firms, some allegedly funded by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s research institutes, have been found creating and cultivating social media accounts aimed at shaping narratives in Taiwan and influencing public opinion.

The accounts often pose as pro-Taiwan voices to build credibility and reach before later shifting messaging at critical moments to amplify division, steer discourse and influence electoral outcomes, he said.

Wang said that national security agencies are monitoring the situation, and that he would ask the Ministry of Digital Affairs and other cybersecurity authorities to keep a close watch.

Some content farms are able to activate more than 100 Facebook pages within minutes and push out more than 300 posts in rapid succession, he said.

While the content is not overtly political, the scale and coordination of the activity is concerning, he added.

China has long leveraged military-linked resources and extensive state backing to influence public discourse in democratic countries through what is often described as cognitive warfare, affecting referendums, opinion polls and elections, he said.

With Japan having recently faced similar interference during parliamentary elections, and elections approaching in Taiwan and the US, the agencies should respond appropriately, he added.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES