Reports of Coordinated Pro-China Activity on Reddit

In March 2019, BuzzFeed News reported that Reddit users across multiple communities were observing what looked like coordinated pro-China activity. The reporting was prompted by public threads on the site itself: a user on the Canadian news subreddit r/onguardforthee asked 'Ever Wonder Why Canadian Subreddits Are Becoming Littered With Chinese Propaganda?' Users described an increase in newly created accounts that downvoted criticism of China, swarmed threads to promote Communist Party positions, and attacked critics of the Chinese government, particularly on sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Huawei, and Falun Gong.

A source familiar with moderation of r/geopolitics, a forum drawing roughly 1 million visits a month, called the influx 'the most active and aggressive' effort they had witnessed, saying 'the pro-CCP effort vastly overshadows any operation by the Russians.' BuzzFeed News analyzed more than 30 accounts banned from r/geopolitics over China-related comments: some belonged to Chinese citizens working in the United States or Canada, several were active on subreddits for Ontario universities, and the most suspicious were newly created, focused on China discussions, and went dormant once banned. Moderators resorted to barring posts from accounts less than 20 days old, a restriction determined users simply waited out. Some banned accounts bore names like 'Prepaid_Shill' and '5000000cents,' an apparent nod to China's '50 cent army' of paid commenters.

There was no public evidence directly linking the activity to the Chinese government, distinguishing it from the well-documented operations attributed to Russia's Internet Research Agency. But China analyst Bill Bishop said the behaviour matched Beijing's drive to rally 'greater discourse power' and control the dialogue about China abroad, describing an upsurge over the prior 18 months in Chinese government accounts 'taking the battle overseas to the global internet.'

The reporting landed weeks after Tencent, the Chinese technology giant behind WeChat, was reported to be leading a $150 million investment in Reddit, a site blocked in mainland China since August 2018. Users had already revolted against the investment by flooding the platform with content censored in China, including Tank Man photographs, Winnie the Pooh images and tributes to Liu Xiaobo; one Tank Man post drew more than 200,000 upvotes, and users compiled and reposted lists of keywords censored under the Great Firewall.

Freedom House's 2020 special report Beijing's Global Megaphone later folded the Reddit episode into a documented pattern of suspected efforts by pro-Beijing trolls to manipulate content rankings on platforms including Google, Reddit and YouTube, noting that such overseas campaigns apparently began as early as mid-2017 and often relied on accounts bought on the black market. Twitter announced in August 2019 that it had removed more than 900 accounts tied to a Chinese state-directed campaign against Hong Kong protesters plus roughly 200,000 associated accounts; Reddit announced no comparable takedown.