How TikTok, Facebook influencers in China push propaganda
To her 1.4 million followers on social media, Vica Li says she is a “life blogger” and “food lover” who wants to teach her fans about China so they can travel the country with ease. “Through my lens, I will take you around China, take you into Vica’s life!” she says in a January video posted on YouTube and Facebook. But that lens may be controlled by CGTN, the Chinese-state run TV network where she has regularly appeared in broadcasts and is listed as a digital reporter on the company’s website. While Vica Li tells followers she “created all of these channels on her own,” her Facebook account shows at least nine people manage her page.
That portfolio of accounts is just one tentacle of China’s growing influence on U.S.-owned social media platforms, an Associated Press examination has found.
As China continues to assert its economic might, it is using the global social media ecosystem to expand its already formidable influence. The country has built a network of social media personalities who parrot the government’s perspective in posts, operating in virtual lockstep as they promote China, deflect criticism of its human rights abuses and advance Beijing’s talking points on world affairs like Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Some of China’s state-affiliated reporters have posited themselves as trendy Instagram influencers or bloggers. The country has also hired firms to recruit influencers to deliver carefully crafted messages that boost its image to social media users.
And it is benefitting from a cadre of Westerners who have devoted YouTube channels and Twitter feeds to echoing pro-China narratives on everything from Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims to Olympian Eileen Gu, an American who competed for China in the most
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