China accused of election interference with 'Spamouflage' campaign to impersonate US voters

China has been accused of impersonating U.S. voters and pushing divisive messaging online in an attempt at election interference dubbed 'Spamouflage.'

Intelligence company Graphika released new research on Tuesday accusing Chinese state-linked influences of pushing spam content and targeted propaganda across social media platforms and online forums.

Jack Stubbs, Graphika's research team lead, told Reuters 'the key takeaway from this report... [is that Spamouflage] has become more aggressive in its efforts to infiltrate and sway U.S. political conversations.'

While the concept of 'Spamouflage' has been on officials' radars since 2017, Stubbs said efforts have been ramped up ahead of the November 5 election. 

China has been accused of impersonating U.S. voters and pushing divisive messaging online in an attempt at election interference dubbed 'Spamouflage'

'This matters because it shows Chinese influence operations targeting the U.S. are evolving, engaging in more advanced deceptive behaviors, and directly targeting these organic but hyper-sensitive rifts in society,' he said. 

One such example referenced in the report were memes created and posted on X describing President Joe Biden as a 'coward' and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a 'fraud.'

The efforts of the campaign do not appear to be targeted toward a specific candidate or party.

Instead, it appears to simply be amplifying criticisms toward both candidates, American society as a whole and the broader government.

Graphika has identified 15 Spamouflage accounts on X and one on TikTok - all of which claim to be US citizens or media outlets.

One such example referenced in the report were memes created and posted on X describing President Joe Biden as a 'coward' and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a 'fraud'

Graphika has identified 15 Spamouflage accounts on X and one on TikTok - all of which claim to be US citizens or media outlets 

The TikTok account referenced in the report, Harlan Report, had a video which garnered 1.5million views, mocking Biden as he gave a speech at the NATO summit.

A TikTok spokesperson subsequently confirmed the account had been permanently banned from the app.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington, said 'China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election.

'We hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue out of China in the election.' 

The report comes months after Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed in April the U.S. had seen evidence that China was trying to 'influence' and 'interfere' with the upcoming election.

'We have seen, generally speaking, evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere, and we want to make sure that that's cut off as quickly as possible,' Blinken told CNN at the time.

'Any interference by China in our election is something that we're looking very carefully at and is totally unacceptable to us, so I wanted to make sure that they heard that message again.'