Return of the (Spamouflage) Dragon
Graphika tracked the return of “Spamouflage Dragon,” a pro-Chinese influence network that resurfaced in 2020 to promote Beijing-aligned narratives on Hong Kong and COVID-19.
In early 2020, a pro-Chinese cross-platform political spam network that Graphika has dubbed “Spamouflage Dragon” came out of hiding, standing up new accounts and reactivating dormant ones to post about Hong Kong politics, Chinese regime critics, and the Chinese response to COVID-19.
Until the platforms took its assets down, the network operated across social media, with presence on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Some of its assets were newly created in early 2020; others appeared to have been created earlier, but only posted spam in their early days; still others appeared to have been hijacked from users around the world, especially Bangladesh. The network made heavy use of video footage taken from pro-Chinese government channels, together with memes and lengthy texts in both Chinese and English. It intersperses its political content with spam posts, typically of scenery, basketball, models, and TikTok videos. These appeared designed to camouflage the operation’s political content, hence the name.
Ben Nimmo
Head of Investigations
Ben Nimmo was Head of Investigations at Graphika, where he led an expert team of OSINT investigators in detecting, identifying and analyzing inauthentic behavior and information operations online. He specializes in analyzing patterns of online disinformation and influence operations across varying platforms and geographical regions. He is now the Principal Investigator, Intelligence & Investigations at OpenAI.
Camille François
Chief Innovation Officer
Camille François works on cyber conflict and digital rights online. She was the Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, where she led the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment.
C. Shawn Eib
Analyst
Léa Ronzaud
Senior Analyst
Léa Ronzaud leads monitoring and investigations into the detection and tracking of Russian influence operations and violent extremist groups. She also researches nihilistic violent extremism and hacktivism. Léa’s work has helped disrupt efforts by extremists in multiple countries to orchestrate real-world harm and exposed the inner workings of nation-state influence operations from Russia, China, and Iran.
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The full report includes the complete network graph maps, raw attribution indicators, cross-platform topology analysis, and the full takedown timeline with platform-level data.
- Full network graph visualizations
- Attribution indicators with confidence scores
- Raw behavioral modeling data
- Takedown coordination timeline
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