Meta Closes 9,000 Chinese Accounts

Meta announced it has closed nearly 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to a Chinese political influence operation called 'Spamouflage.' The company says the network posted material that praised China while criticizing the United States, Western governments, and outspoken critics of the Chinese government. Meta removed the accounts after an investigation that identified coordinated posting patterns and account connections tied to operators in China, calling the activity inauthentic and aimed at manipulating online discussion.

According to Meta and outside researchers, Spamouflage originally appeared on large platforms but was partially disrupted in 2019, after which operators shifted to smaller social networks and used many duplicate or fake profiles to repost the same messages. The network combined favorable coverage of Chinese policies with attacks on US and allied figures, but analysts found much of the content low-quality, repetitive, and confined to insular communities, limiting its ability to reach broader audiences.

Meta described Spamouflage as one of five operations detailed in its quarterly report on coordinated inauthentic behavior, alongside campaigns linked to Russia, Iran and Turkey. The company says those operations used networks of pages, groups and accounts to amplify political messaging across countries, prompting continuous efforts to find and remove such networks faster. Experts say takedowns reduce influence but also show how determined actors change tactics and migrate to platforms that are harder to police.

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