Beijing took advantage of the last election in Taiwan to test its new disinformation tools, based on artificial intelligence

Several groups of Taiwanese researchers have presented an assessment of disinformation content, which circulated before the last presidential election, with, unsurprisingly, significant Chinese influence activity.

The conclusions of the Taiwanese experts shed light on some new points, first of all, about the method implemented by the Information Environment Research Center and other Taiwanese NGOs. Several actors in society, magistrates, engineers and journalists collaborated to dissect and understand the Chinese influence strategy. The second point was the creation of technological tools making it possible to identify tens of thousands of data and to dissociate authentic content from content generated by artificial intelligence.

Disinformation circulated massively during the Taiwanese presidential campaign, such as this story claiming that American officials had asked Taiwan to open a laboratory in the heart of its capital to develop biological weapons. Faced with the emotion aroused by this false information, the American State Department was even forced to deny it.

Up to 15,000 pieces of false information were disseminated during this campaign, on social networks, via WhatsApp discussion groups. These flows of disinformation were identified and monitored by the company of this Taiwanese boss. “Taiwan is the number one target for the dissemination of false content concerning its diplomacy. For 11 years, every day, every Taiwanese receives hundreds of influence messages on their social networks. This regularity in the manipulation of Taiwanese democracy is due to the unique position between the United States and China.”

The American presidential election, China’s next target

A study, which has just been published by Microsoft, highlights the similarities between Taiwan and the recent tactics of Chinese operators in the American information space. The Microsoft report gives examples of manipulation of search engine results, hashtags to highlight false information, or even more sophisticated AI, capable of cloning the voice and image of public figures and modifying their speech with fake clips “relatively easy to manufacture”.

By 2023, American authorities were already accusing China of spending billions of euros on a global disinformation campaign. The slightest debate and the slightest news item are immediately exploited by this Chinese online army, whose false content is scrupulously relayed by Russian operators. China and Russia still affirmed on April 9 that they wanted “strengthen their strategic cooperation”.