Chinese Bot Farm

Bots can be indistinguishable from legitimate users. These automated programs can be used to scrape users’ personal information without consent, fabricate influence campaigns, covertly push agendas, spread disinformation, and make scams more convincing.

Bots appear to be used for political manipulation. They post provocative and divisive political content to incite legitimate Social Media users. Each account looks like a real person at first glance, complete with a profile photo and friends list (likely consisting of other bots). To expand their reach and ensure they’re not just posting to each other’s timelines, the bots join specific Social Media groups where their posts are more likely to be seen and discussed by legitimate users.