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“Cybersoldiers” serving China invade social networks with threats and propaganda

They are like “bodyguards” in the virtual space of the Xi Jinping regime. Through fake social media profiles, they threaten journalists for writing critical Beijing articles and keep the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative alive about the Covid-19 pandemic or topics like Hong Kong or Taiwan


The Spanish newspaper El Mundo published in this Tuesday’s edition a feature article entitled: “China’s bodyguards in cyberspace”. The article refers to specific cases of Chinese citizens who are authentic “cyber soldiers” in the service of Beijing. They resort to fake profiles and other tricks to threaten journalists and spread the propaganda of the Xi Jinping regime on social media.

The user @ lorochino21 will be one of those cyber soldiers. He appeared on Twitter on February 25 to criticize an article in the El Mundo newspaper about China’s censorship in times of coronavirus. And he wrote the following to the journalist: “You are a backward and psychopathic puppet in the service of your masters from the United States. See that the censorship you say exists is such that I write to you on Twitter from Shanghai ”.

This was the softest message of the five that the stranger sent to the journalist, in perfect Castilian. He also dedicated himself to sharing news praising China’s management in the Global Times, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s daily newspapers. As he received no response, he proceeded with the insults, always anonymously, through e-mails or private messages via Facebook, writes El Mundo.

As the article explains, to do all of this, this alleged Twitter user would need a VPN, the software that allows you to jump the great digital wall of censorship. Six months after the message sent on Twitter, there is no trace of the man or woman behind @ lorochino21. A few days ago in the e-mail of another journalist, a message fell from an individual who identified himself as Chenwell. He claimed that the coronavirus was taken to Wuhan by US military personnel. In his message he sent “links” to various Twitter and Facebook accounts of anonymous users who shared photos with symbols of China on their profiles, all of whom commented on the same theory.

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Generalist media, focusing on the relationship between Portuguese-speaking countries and China.

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