Information War

It’s time for the U.S. to start pushing back against Chinese disinformation operations
By Laura Rosenberger and Zack Cooper

He Jiangbing, a finance scholar, shows his Twitter profile in Beijing on Nov. 30, 2018. 

In recent weeks, the world has watched as millions of Hong Kongers have taken to the streets to defend their democratic rights. 

Police have jailed protest leaders, and China has moved troops to the border. 

The struggle has also spread to online platforms, which Beijing is using to shape perceptions of the protests in order to undermine support for them.
Although Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam has addressed one of the key demands from protesters, the protests continue. 

Even if protests dissipate, we should anticipate that Beijing will use the next few months to better understand how demonstrators used online platforms to organize, constrict further online activism and manipulate perceptions of the protesters.
The Chinese security apparatus is deeply experienced in restricting speech online, starting inside its own borders and with its own platforms. 

Western tech companies have now confirmed that the Chinese government is also engaged in an effort to manipulate the information space outside its Great Firewall, from Hong Kong to Melbourne to Vancouver. 

In the process it is also making use of U.S. social media platforms. 

This should serve as a wake-up call for Americans that weaponization of social media is not just a Russian tactic and that our social media platforms remain vulnerable to manipulation by foreign actors seeking to interfere in democratic debate.
The first public evidence of this campaign was confirmed several weeks ago when Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube disabled more than one thousand accounts linked to Chinese state-backed disinformation operations. 

According to the companies, these accounts are operating in a “coordinated manner” and “deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong.” 

Beijing’s target certainly wasn’t citizens in mainland China, where all three platforms are blocked.
China has also been using its state media — as well as advertisements on social media platforms — to portray the protesters as violent to external audiences. 

In the face of this activity, Twitter took the commendable action of halting advertisements from state-controlled media outlets.
Beijing and other authoritarian regimes are increasingly employing these techniques. 

Facebook and Twitter have removed numerous fake accounts linked to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Myanmar for similar manipulative behavior.
Nor is this just about democratic rights in Hong Kong. 

Australia and most of our European allies have struggled to prevent external interference in their democratic processes, and Taiwan is rightly concerned that the manipulation and interference tactics Beijing is exerting in Hong Kong will be used to interfere in its elections next year. 

And we know that social media has been used to attack American democracy.
All Americans can agree on the need to take action to protect our system of government. 

A competition of ideas is healthy, but foreign interference in those debates is not. 

The 2020 elections are likely to be even more contentious than those in 2016, so we need to ensure the health of our political processes.
Despite these shared concerns, our elected leaders have taken few steps to safeguard our democracy, including from foreign manipulation of social media. 

To date, Congress has shown both a thin understanding of technology and a greater interest in scoring partisan points than in addressing real challenges. 

Numerous pieces of bipartisan legislation have gone nowhere, while foreign adversaries have continued their assault on our democratic debate. 

As Congress returns this month, there are several immediate steps it should take.
First, lawmakers should enact measures that facilitate greater cooperation and transparency by social media platforms. 

Congress should pass legislation establishing a mechanism that streamlines and institutionalizes information sharing between and among the social media platforms, government and outside researchers in a manner that protects privacy and speech. 

Legislation such as the bipartisan Honest Ads Act would improve disclosure requirements for online political advertisements and provide Americans with important context to evaluate information about who funds political ads online.
Second, Congress should provide the government with mechanisms to facilitate a coordinated and integrated approach to this issue — one that enables it to see and respond to the full threat picture. This should include creating a counter-foreign interference coordinator at the National Security Council, which would coordinate policy responses across the U.S. government and engage the private sector, and a National Hybrid Threat Center, which would ensure that threat reporting does not fall into gaps and seams as it has in the past. 

Congress should explore whether the intelligence community should receive new powers to detect and assess foreign information operations.
Third, Congress should send a clear message to foreign governments, entities and individuals that the United States will impose significant costs for interference. 

And it should support efforts to redouble coordination with our allies on the shared challenges facing our democracies.
China is using U.S. social media platforms to manipulate how people around the world, including Americans, perceive issues of importance to the party-state. 

Right now the focus is on Hong Kong, but it won’t stay there. 

Our elected leaders can get ahead of the curve and close the vulnerabilities China’s information operations will exploit. 

To preserve the vitality of our free and open democratic process, they should — and now.

The battle goes on!

Hong Kong airport targeted in weekend protest after last week's mayhem

By Donny Kwok, Twinnie Siu


HONG KONG -- Hong Kong braced for an anti-government protest “stress test” of the airport this weekend, as weeks of sometimes violent demonstrations in the Chinese-ruled city showed no signs of let-up amid rising tension between China and some Western nations.
The airport, reached by a gleaming suspension bridge carrying both rail and road traffic, was forced to close last week when protesters, barricading passageways with luggage trolleys, metal barriers and other objects, clashed with police.
China’s Hong Kong affairs office condemned the mayhem as “near-terrorist acts”.
“Go to the airport by different means, including MTR, airport bus, taxi, bike and private car to increase pressure on airport transport,” protest organizers wrote online on Friday.
The Airport Authority published a half-page notice in newspapers urging young people to “love Hong Kong” and said it opposed acts that blocked the airport, adding that it would keep working to maintain smooth operations.
Hong Kong’s high court extended an order restricting protests at the airport. 

Some activists had apologized for last week’s airport turmoil.
The protests, originally over a now-suspended bill that would have allowed extraditions to China, have plunged the former British colony into its worst crisis since its return to China in 1997 and pose a major challenge for Communist Party rulers in Beijing.
The unrest has widened into calls for greater freedom, fueled by worries about the erosion of rights guaranteed under a “one country, two systems” formula, adopted after the handover, such as an independent judiciary and the right to protest.
Transport Secretary Frank Chan said airport passenger volume from Aug 1 to 21 was down 11% from the corresponding period last year, with cargo volume down 14%.
Commerce Secretary Edward Yau said visitor arrivals started to fall in mid-July. 

For Aug 15 to 20, arrivals were down 49.6% on the corresponding period of 2018.
“It was the fastest and steepest drop in recent years, and the situation is obviously very worrisome,” he told reporters.
The Canadian consulate said it had suspended travel to mainland China for local staff, just days after a Chinese employee of the city’s British consulate was confirmed to have been detained in China.
China has said that Simon Cheng, the consulate employee, was detained in the border city of Shenzhen neighboring Hong Kong. 

Beijing has accused Britain and other Western countries of meddling in its affairs in Hong Kong.
Canada’s latest travel advisory on Thursday warned that increased screening of travelers’ digital devices had been reported at border crossings between mainland China and Hong Kong.

BACK IN THE USSR
Protests on Friday included a march by accountants, a “Baltic Chain”, in which protesters will join hands across different districts in the evening, and a “rally of Christians”.
“A lot of bosses are apolitical. However, politics comes to you even when you try to avoid it,” a city legislator, Kenneth Leung, told the accountants’ rally.
“We used to be ranked as the freest economy in the world for almost 20 years. Can we keep the ranking? No, it’s over. Our core values are integrity and honesty. We need to stick to our international core values.”
He put the number taking part in the march at 5,000.
In 1989, an estimated two million people joined arms across three Baltic states in a protest against Soviet rule that became known as the “Baltic Way” or “Baltic Chain”.
Alphabet Inc’s Google has said its YouTube streaming video service disabled 210 channels engaging in a Chinese coordinated influence operation around the Hong Kong protests. 

Twitter and Facebook have also dismantled a similar campaign originating in mainland China.
The protests have caused corporate casualties, such as the Cathay Pacific airline, amid mounting Chinese scrutiny over the involvement of some of its staff in protests.
Cathay confirmed on Friday that Rebecca Sy, the head of Cathay Dragon’s Airlines Flight Attendants’ Association, was no longer with the company. 

Her departure follows the shock resignation of Cathay Chief Executive Rupert Hogg last week.
Sy said she was fired immediately after managers saw her Facebook account without being given a reason.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions called on Cathay to end to what it described as “white terror”, following Sy’s sacking. 

It said 14 people had been fired in connection with the protests.
White terror is a common expression to describe anonymous acts that create a climate of fear. 

Cathay pilots and cabin crew this week described political denunciations, sackings and phone searches by Chinese aviation officials.
Demonstrators have five demands: withdraw the extradition bill, set up an independent inquiry into the protests and perceived police brutality, stop describing the protests as “rioting”, waive charges against those arrested, and resume political reform.

Wikipedia Is Now Banned in China in All Languages

BY HILLARY LEUNG

An error message for the blocked Wikipedia website page is seen on a computer screen on March 23, 2018.

China has expanded its ban on Wikipedia to block the community-edited online encyclopedia in all available languages, the BBC reports.
An earlier enforced ban barred Internet users from viewing the Chinese version, as well as the pages for sensitive search terms such as Dalai Lama and the Tiananmen massacre.
According to Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), an internet censorship research group, the block has been in place since late April.
The Wikimedia foundation said in a statement that it did not receive any notice of the censorship.
Wikipedia joins a growing list of websites that cannot be accessed in China, which in recent years has tightened its grip on access to information online. 

Google, Facebook and YouTube are among the sites already banned, forcing Internet users to use virtual private networks, or VPN, to bypass what has become known as the “Great Firewall” of China.
Reporters Without Border’s 2019 World Press Freedom index ranks China at 177 on a list of 180 countries analyzed. 

China is not just issuing censorships locally, but is also attempting to infiltrate foreign media in an attempt to deter criticism and spread propaganda.
Wikipedia is also blocked in Turkey.

Century of Humiliation: AlphaGo Second Win

Chinese authorities banned the broadcast of Ke Jie's stinging defeats
By Yi Shu Ng

A Go match between the world's top player, Ke Jie, and Google's AlphaGo that took place this week was censored by authorities.
The AI beat Ke Jie in yet another match today, securing a second win in the three-part match.
Three journalists have reported receiving verbal directives barring their news organisations from broadcasting the match — as well as the Go and AI summit held in Wuzhen, east China.
One journalist reported being barred from even mentioning Google's name while reporting on the event, while another said that while they could mention Google, they were barred from writing about Google's products.
This is what users in China see when attempting to watch a livestream of the match. 

"Livestream has been cut by a moderator," the error message said.
A leaked copy of a government directive was also posted on California-based China Digital Times, a website that monitors censorship in China. 

"No website, without exception, may carry a livestream," the directive said. 

"If one has been announced in advance, please immediately withdraw it."
The match was not allowed to be broadcast in any form — including liveblogging, live photos and video streams, or even on personal social media accounts, the directive added.
Staff who were already sent to Wuzhen were recalled, according to a video editor who spoke to Quartz about the ban.
Replays were reportedly available on streaming sites like bilibili.com and other websites. 

All three parts of the match were available live on YouTube, which cannot be accessed without a VPN.
Go fans were really not pleased on Weibo:
"I'm watching the replay. AlphaGo has certainly evolved... when it was matched against Lee Sedol, AlphaGo was probably not Ke Jie's match. But the lack of a livestream really makes it hard for Go fans," said a user.
"I don't understand why they won't livestream this domestically. Was watching this on bilibili when they cut the stream. What won't you show others? I had to go to YouTube, damn," said another user.
"Why won't you allow for a livestream of the AlphaGo and Ke Jie match? It isn't coming at a sensitive time, no?" a third user asked.
"Does anyone with authority know why they won't let us watch the livestream? Apparently relevant departments requested for the livestream to not be broadcast domestically, and the broadcast which was advertised in April on CCTV5 (China Central Television's sports channel) was cut and replaced with a live broadcast of basketball." said a fourth user. 

"You could watch it on YouTube, and many sites have pulled footage off there, but they've been cut in the middle of the game."
The livestream's ban is the latest development in a longstanding feud between China and Google, after a drastic fallout in 2010 when the company detected a series of cyberattacks on other U.S. companies.
Google has refused to abide by Chinese censorship rules, but the company has made inroads beyond the Great Firewall — Google Translate was made available in the country in March this year.
Government officials have also indicated a willingness to allow some Google services, like Google Scholar and other services that do not involve "sensitive" information, back into the country.

Chinese Paranoia

China adds Pinterest to list of banned sites

by Sherisse Pham

China's Great Firewall is cracking down on Pinterest, the social media platform popular for letting users share, or pin, items of interest to a virtual board.
For years, Pinterest has been freely accessible in China, most likely because its users typically don't share content that would rattle Chinese censors. 

People mostly use the site to pin images and tips on home decor, hair styles, cooking, wedding planning and fashion.
The Pinterest block started earlier this month, according to watchdog group Greatfire.org, which monitors censorship and accessibility of websites in China.
The timing coincided with China's annual National People's Congress, a sensitive time in Beijing when China's top leadership and thousands of delegates gather to set the country's political and economic course for the year.
Pinterest did not respond to a request for comment outside of business hours. 

China's Cyberspace Administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Pinterest's ban fits a pattern of China blocking sites that compete with emerging local rivals.
China's censorship has effectively "become a tool of industrial policy to discriminate against foreign competitors," wrote Cho-Wen Chu, a professor at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University, in a paper published in January.
A crackdown on Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook helped domestic companies such as Baidu, Youku, Weibo and Renren flourish.
The Western sites were widely used to share content China would deem highly sensitive, like the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests, Tibet, or the Dalai Lama.
But Pinterest, Facebook's Instagram, or even Snapchat, are not known for their political content.
"China's 'national security' concerns may be only a convenient excuse to favor domestic dotcoms by impeding fair competition," according to Chu.
Banning Western rivals gives Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba's Pinterest rival Faxian, and Instagram imitator Meitu a huge advantage.
China has 731 million internet users, and 95% of them access the web on mobile devices, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Centre.
With that many mobile users tapping into apps and shopping on their smartphones, China is a lucrative market for any social media platform, a fact not lost on Pinterest President Tim Kendell.
Pinterest's position as a "catalogue of ideas" rather than a social network gives the company a big push in areas of the world like China, Kendell said in an interview with Fox News last year.
Pinterest users "are not there to share things with their friends and family, they are not there to find out what their friends and family are doing. So it's not this community planning tool," he said.