Four years ago, the pandemic led to one of the more unusual elections in American history. But 2020 could ultimately stand in further distinction as the last U.S. presidential election in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not interfere.
In a year where more voters are exercising their democratic rights than ever before, the CCP is already on the edge of influencing our — and the world’s — elections.
Fake CCP-affiliated accounts are cropping up, spreading disinformation and societal discord and undermining the very foundation of our democracies: trust in our elections.
Russia and Iran have written the authoritarian playbook to influence democratic elections, but Beijing is an avid reader. Learning from their campaigns to influence U.S. domestic politics, the CCP is intent on undermining U.S. trust in the democratic process, souring our image on the world stage, and swaying the results in its favor. We cannot let this happen, for the sake of our and other democracies’ hard-won right to vote.
One need only look to Taiwan to see the tactics the CCP is developing to undermine the legitimate democratic process. During Taiwan’s recent elections, Beijing manipulated its media environment to sway public opinion in favor of pro-CCP candidates. It paid for fabricated polls and spread pro-China disinformation online aimed at Taiwanese voters.
Thankfully, due to the committed efforts of Taiwan and its people, these efforts were contained, and Taiwan’s elections were held freely and fairly.
Now, having studied that setback, the CCP turns to the U.S., with implications for democracies around the world. We must not be complacent in defending our democracy. According to independent researchers, covert CCP-linked accounts are masquerading online as American voters and stoking domestic divisions in the run-up to the 2024 election. It’s called “Spamouflage,” a widespread influence operation pushing pro-CCP narratives.
Recent developments show an increasing sophistication of Spamouflage attacks, resembling attacks from Russian state actors and directly targeting U.S. elections. One Spamouflage account gained almost 12,000 followers as it spewed AI-generated content critical of the U.S. and in favor of one 2024 candidate over the other.
In other cases, pro-CCP accounts are buoyed by organized networks of inauthentic accounts. In the case of Jackson Hinkle — a far-right X user who regularly posts conspiracy theories and misinformation — a network of at least 20,000 accounts that had previously reposted Chinese-language CCP talking points began reposting Hinkle’s content, including posts denying Beijing’s brutal genocide of Muslim and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. These bot armies are skewing perceptions of truth and fact, and in turn tarnishing the debates we must have as part of the democratic process.
The threat is real and growing: If operators continue to identify successful campaigns influencing U.S. public opinion and augment them with generative AI, then we have a real problem.
We already know the threat posed by the CCP’s control over TikTok. Because its parent company, ByteDance, is subject to the whim of the CCP, its algorithm can be manipulated to conduct targeted influence operations, and our data can be weaponized against us. (In fact, the Editor-in-Chief of ByteDance is the leader of the Communist Party cell within the company.)
Forty-three percent of TikTok users report getting news from the app. Now imagine the CCP were to put its full force behind a political candidate in any of the 2024 elections. Or that it decides to sow distrust in our election integrity to meet CCP accusations that the U.S. is somehow not an exemplary democracy. The consequences would be enormous.
This TikTok vulnerability and others demonstrate the extent of the challenges to our democracy posed by the CCP’s techno-authoritarianism and its global desire to undermine democracy and human rights. That’s why I led a historic bill that incentivizes TikTok’s CCP-controlled parent company, ByteDance, to divest TikTok so American personal data can be secured. It became law with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Now, as we turn to face our broader vulnerabilities to CCP interference, we are similarly not without solutions.
This starts with increasing digital media literacy. And it means holding social media companies accountable when disinformation, conspiracy theories and hate spread. We can learn a lesson from Taiwan: To combat CCP interference, Taiwan has fostered a robust network of nonprofit fact-checking organizations that flag misleading information harmful to their democracy. It is time for the U.S. to take similar steps.
In a year where at least 64 countries are heading to the polls, we must be clear-eyed and vigilant against CCP attempts to rock the very core of our democracy: our elections.
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi serves as ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party