This article details tactics used by the Chinese government to promote their confusion beliefs and authoritarian ideologies. This is done by using government supported lifestyle influencers to show off the good tourist destinations in China while also spouting the beliefs of the government. The article specifically investigates this process through one person Vica Li. Li is a lifestyle Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube influencer that travels to destinations within China promoting them as great destinations while highlighting how the Chinese government is supporting their citizens. During these videos she has also taken a redirect that closely aligns with the China Global Television Network “CGTN ”. In several videos she has spoken about the war in Ukraine as well as the treatment of Uighur Muslims, stating that Ukraine and NATO provoked Russia and that the Uighurs were being treated humanely and not having their human rights violated. AP investigators have found at least 200 influencers in 38 languages each having amassed at least a few hundred thousand followers all of whom preach pro CGTN narratives. While platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have gone as far as to label these accounts as connected to the Chinese government other platforms such as YouTube and Tik Tok have not. The danger in this as pointed out in the AP investigation is that viewers are not often aware of these accounts being connected to the CGTN and will therefore be influenced by them. Other examples cited in the investigation are the 3,000 different instagram ads run by Russian bots during the 2016 election that were designed to divide American voters. These matter because they show a general trend towards misinformation and dissent by foreign actors to influence democratic nations. The investigation by AP has highlighted a new form of disruption that takes advantage of a country’s youth’s newfound importance on online influencers for their media. This could be a sign of how new misinformation campaigns may be conducted and how the youth will be exploited.
