China is using fake online accounts pretending to be real Trump-supporting Americans to sow division and attack President Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a report. Researchers and government officials told The New York Times the strategy appears to follow a tactic used by Russia ahead of the 2016 election in which partisan divisions are amplified in an effort to undermine the U.S. government’s policies. One Chinese account, allegedly describing itself as “MAGA all the way,” attacked Biden’s age and claimed that Biden is a Satanist pedophile. Another account on X that used a Western name and referenced “MAGA 2024” posted about a bogus claim from Russian state media that a neo-Nazi gangster had been sent by the CIA to fight in Ukraine—a post that was then allegedly shared by Alex Jones to his millions of followers. Some of the accounts reportedly posted pro-Beijing content written in Mandarin before transforming in recent months in the guise of U.S. nationals posting in English.
