China’s Tactics in ‘Disinformation Wars’: Exploiting Hawaii Fires for Strategic Manipulation

Last month, the devastating fires that ravaged Maui were rumored to be caused by a hidden “weather weapon” the US government tested on its own citizens. This conspiracy theory, however, is part of a coordinated disinformation campaign by Chinese operatives to create turmoil in the US before the 2024 presidential election, as reported by the New York Times. Russia, known for its meddling in the 2016 election, also seized the opportunity to exploit the Maui fires by spreading social media posts suggesting that funds allocated to Ukraine should be redirected to the US. This joint effort between China and Russia indicates the start of a new phase in the disinformation wars, fueled by AI tools.

China seems to have adopted Russia’s tactics by establishing a network of accounts on various social media platforms—including Facebook, X, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Medium—with the intention of using them for future information operations. Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, states that there is no direct evidence of coordination between China and Russia in these campaigns, but there is a noticeable alignment and synchronization. The RAND Corporation, which also conducted an investigation, confirms this finding. Brian Liston, a researcher at cybersecurity company Recorded Future, adds that China is taking a new direction by promoting conspiracy theories unrelated to their immediate interests, such as Taiwan.

NewsGuard, a company specializing in monitoring disinformation, describes this Chinese campaign as the most extensive operation of its kind. According to Gizmodo, some of the posts even utilized generative artificial intelligence to create images that would attract higher engagement from authentic social media users. The use of AI tools in this disinformation campaign is highlighted in Microsoft’s report and corroborated by Axios. However, despite these efforts, the posts generated minimal interactions, according to Gizmodo’s conversation with representatives from YouTube and Meta. The true extent of China’s account usage during the election remains to be seen. Nonetheless, US intelligence officials believe that China favors former President Trump over President Biden due to Trump’s calls for removing US troops from Japan and South Korea. (Read more disinformation stories.)