Drowning out the truth

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Click Here – “Drowning out the truth”

Host: Dena Temple Raston, Recorded Future News
Date: May 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into how the Chinese government leverages online propaganda campaigns to shape perceptions both within China and globally. Host Dena Temple Raston, along with expert guests, examines the evolution of state-driven digital influence—from the psychological conditioning of citizens to modern bot-driven information warfare—and draws direct comparisons to Russia’s approach. The focus is on the mechanisms, scale, and goals of these operations, highlighting how saturation and repetition—not just arguments—have become central tools in the modern propaganda arsenal.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Propaganda as Psychological Conditioning

[00:02–02:45]

• Russia vs. China:
  • Russia’s propaganda is described as demoralizing, making resistance feel futile, and causing people to become cynical and politically inert.
    • David Borenstein: “In Russia, it’s about making you do this stupid stuff again and again…enforce the point that the state is so much more powerful than you and you are nothing but a bug...it psychologically conditions you to become cynical and to believe that you're powerless.” [00:44]
  • China’s model is more about belief and transaction:
    • David Borenstein: “In China, people tend to believe what they're being told by the government quite strongly. They repeat it…If you argue against it, they will passionately argue the lines that they are taught in school.” [01:31]
• Cultural Roots:
  • China’s approach leverages deep cultural traditions (Confucianism, the concept of Tian Xia), creating a perception of the state as a benevolent provider rather than an adversary.
    • David Borenstein: “Like going back thousands of years, the concept of Tian Xia…civil society existing apart from the emperor or the Chinese Communist Party…it just goes against Confucianism.” [02:21]

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2. Belief vs. Compliance: The Power of Internalized Propaganda

[02:55–03:27; 06:29–07:35]

• Unlike Russia’s culture of skepticism, many in China “don’t just comply, they invest in the story.” [02:03]
• The Chinese system’s success is rooted in citizens adopting, repeating, and emotionally defending state narratives, not merely following orders.
• This dynamic is traced back historically, particularly to Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when citizens became enforcers of the state’s ideology—an approach which now persists in digitized form.

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3. The 50 Cent Army & Everyday Participation

[07:35–09:16]

• “50 Cent Army:”
  • Refers to people allegedly paid per post to support state narratives online; estimated to be “hundreds of thousands…typically people working part time.” [08:15, Darren Linville]
• Widespread Participation:
  • Involves not just government officials, but also ordinary students and citizens, sometimes as routine extracurricular activity.
    • Darren Linville: “In China, you post on behalf of Xi in your spare time.” [08:57]
• Coordinated Efforts:
  • Sometimes participants follow direct, centrally-coordinated instructions, especially during sensitive news events.

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4. Flooding and Drowning Out Dissent

[09:16–11:30]

• Strategy of Saturation:
  • Example: When reports of forced labor in Xinjiang surfaced, Chinese accounts flooded hashtags with positive or neutral content about Uyghurs—“posts that were happy Uyghur people, posts about Uyghur culture, posts about Uyghur children going to school.” [10:24, Darren Linville]
  • Objective: Don’t rebut, just bury negative stories under a mountain of positive noise—making it hard for dissenting opinions to surface.

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5. Spamouflage Dragon & Evolving Information Warfare

[11:30–13:36]

• Spamouflage Dragon:
  • A network linked to China’s Ministry of Public Security, tasked with coordinated information operations targeting audiences abroad.
    • Darren Linville: “Spamouflage is the state police…the Chinese state police target dissent in the state…they were also trying to do that abroad.” [11:30]
• Global Reach:
  • These campaigns don’t only shape narratives in China, but expand to manipulate international perceptions, including in the US.

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6. Case Study: Influencing U.S. Political Discourse

[13:36–16:41]

• Marco Rubio Incident (2022):
  • On the night of the Florida Senate race, researchers noticed a sudden storm of pro-Rubio posts from fake-looking, newly created accounts with broken English.
    • Darren Linville: “[We] saw tens of thousands of posts…vaguely supportive of Marco Rubio…not his official campaign content and it was being posted by accounts…that had just been created that had no followers…” [14:56, 15:19]
  • The campaign’s amateurish execution and odd targeting suggest it was an experiment or “dry run,” not a real attempt to influence the outcome.

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7. Flooding Attacks: Beyond Election Influence

[17:14–19:14]

• Ongoing Flooding:
  • Before the Beijing Winter Olympics, “pro-China accounts moved in and flooded the same hashtags and drowned them out” when boycott calls emerged. [17:26]
• Ministry of Public Security:
  • By 2019, China’s main police authority took direct control of these operations, escalating their scale and aggressiveness.
    • Ji Fengli: “Ministry of Public Security's involvement signals a more severe level of repression…regarded as high priority, a national security threat…” [17:50, 18:02]

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8. Mechanics of State-Backed Influence Operations

[18:21–19:40]

• The “912 Special Project Working Group”:
  • The in-country name for China’s organized information ops—operate in shifts, hijack accounts, and use dark web access.
    • Ji Fengli: “Basically, Beijing's time, working hours…Monday to Friday with a lunch break.” [18:47]
• Expansion and Adaptation:
  • Targets foreign governments and diaspora, adapts to bot automation and coordination.

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9. Propaganda for Hire: Outsourcing Influence

[20:11–20:46]

• Collaboration with “Dark Marketing Companies”:
  • China now contracts foreign “disinformation arms dealers”—especially in Southeast Asia—to amplify its content.
    • Darren Linville: “Just like modern warfare has arms dealers, the modern information warfare has arms dealers as well…we’ve seen the same company that amplifies spamouflage content also amplifies Russian disinformation.” [20:11]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Propaganda isn't always trying to convince you of something. Sometimes it just tries to wear you down.”
  — Dena Temple Raston [00:02]

• “The idea was simple: Don’t rebut the story. Just bury it under volume, under something that's easier to look at.”
  — Dena Temple Raston [10:44]

• “These companies…are companies that work for everybody. Disinformation is a global market.”
  — Darren Linville [20:11]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Russia vs. China Propaganda: [00:44 - 02:21]
• Historical Context & Maoist Roots: [06:29 - 08:15]
• The 50 Cent Army Explained: [08:15 - 09:16]
• Xinjiang Hashtag Flooding: [09:16 - 10:44]
• Spamouflage Overview: [11:30 - 12:09]
• Marco Rubio Election Case: [14:20 - 16:41]
• Coordinated Flooding Attacks: [17:14 - 17:50]
• Ministry of Public Security Direct Involvement: [17:50 - 18:21]
• 912 Special Project/Operations Mechanics: [18:21 - 18:55]
• Foreign “Disinformation” Contractors: [20:11 - 20:46]

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Conclusion

This episode reveals the sophisticated, scalable, and evolving nature of China’s digital influence campaigns—emphasizing belief over mere compliance, and saturation rather than confrontation. What started as traditional top-down propaganda has evolved into a massive, international operation leveraging state actors, volunteers, and outsourced “arms dealers.” The result is not just a battle for truth, but a battle for attention, where the loudest voices—regardless of authenticity—determine what the world sees and believes.

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Transcript

[Dena Temple Raston]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is. Click here. When American filmmaker David Borenstein started working on the documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin, he. He realized something. Propaganda isn't always trying to convince you of something. Sometimes it just tries to wear you down. We spoke to David and videographer Pavel Pasha Talankin in last Tuesday's episode, and they were tracking how pro government messaging shows up in everyday life.

[David Borenstein]

In Russia, it's about making you do this stupid stuff again and again and again to enforce the point that the state is so much more powerful than you and you are nothing but a bug. And I think in that context, it doesn't really brainwash you with disinformation. Rather, it psychologically conditions you to become cynical and to believe that you're powerless and to believe that you're alone.

[Dena Temple Raston]

In Russia, he says propaganda isn't always about belief. Sometimes it's about exhaustion, about making resistance feel pointless. But David has also spent some years in China watching a very different system of control take hold, one where the message doesn't just circulate, it sticks.

[David Borenstein]

In China, people tend to believe what they're being told by the government quite strongly. They repeat it. They repeat the slogans back to you. They become emotional about it. If you argue against it, they will passionately argue the lines that they are taught in school.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He says that difference comes down to the relationship between the state and its people.

[David Borenstein]

My experience in China is that there's a bargain between the state and the people, that the state is going to be in charge of or responsible for improving the livelihoods of people.

[Dena Temple Raston]

In Russia, skepticism is part of the culture. But in China, the state can feel less like an adversary and more like a provider, a guarantor of stability and growth. And in return, people don't just comply, they invest in the story.

[David Borenstein]

Like going back thousands of years, the concept of Tian Xia, right. Like all under heaven, the emperor is control of all under heaven. So the idea of civil society existing as some sort of entity apart from the emperor or the Chinese Communist Party in this matter, it just goes against Confucianism, ruling ideology that started thousands of years ago.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Do you think it's a cultural reason why disinformation in China or propaganda in China is different than the way it is in Russia. Is it cultural?

[Darren Linville]

Yeah.

[David Borenstein]

Yeah, I think, like, how power and information intersect are always culturally embedded in something. In Russia, 100%. I see the way things working as being some sort of extension of this kind of cult of moral masochism or like a cult of suffering in China, there is much more of a bargain right now between the citizens and the state. It's almost more transactional, like we are giving you something.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And with the Internet, with the way social media and bots can be leveraged to amplify or kill a story, well, it can drown out real people in their opinions. And that's by design. From a court of Future news and prx, this is Click Here, a show about the people making and breaking our digital world. I'm Dena Temple Rouston, and today we're looking at China's online influence, how it amplifies messages in favor of the government and influences global perception without even firing a shot.

[Darren Linville]

So they flooded conversations around Xinjiang and Xinjiangcotton with overtly positive content. So posts that were happy Uyghur people, posts about Uyghur culture, posts about, you know, Uyghur children going to school in China.

[Dena Temple Raston]

People don't just comply, they come to believe it. And the use of bots to shape public opinion is spreading when the playbook is to simply be louder than everyone else whose voices get lost in the chaos. And how does anyone know what to believe? Stay with us. Support for Click here comes from NPR's Planet Money podcast. Planet Money has a knack for taking big, complicated stories and making them feel human. Take the conflict between the US And Iran in a recent episode. The show followed a Seattle comic book publisher trying to track down two comic books stuck on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz. To explain what was happening, Planet Money called a man in Tehran and he described Iran's strategy, like five seconds to pay or your ship doesn't get to pass through. Just like that, a geopolitical standoff turned into something that you could actually picture. That's the trick Planet Money pulls off over and over again. It funds the people living inside these enormous economic stories and through them helps explain how the world really works. From global shipping to sanctions to why Pokemon cards are suddenly worth so much money, Planet Money makes complicated things feel surprisingly clear. Follow NPR's Planet Money podcast and understand how money shapes the world.

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[Dena Temple Raston]

We often describe China's information ecosystem in terms of control. The Great Firewall, a vast surveillance system, barriers that keep some ideas out and manage the ideas within. But what makes that system so powerful isn't just compliance. It's belief. Not just going along with the message, but taking it in and making it your own. But that didn't start with blocked websites or censored posts. The idea that a government could shape not just what people hear, but what they feel and what they value runs much deeper. Centuries deep. And by the time Mao Tse Tung took charge in 1949, he didn't just sharpen this idea, he put it to work, unleashing millions of young people during the Cultural Revolution to not just promote his ideas, but to enforce them. For years, the so called Red Guard fanned out across the country, calling out, correcting and even turning on their fellow citizens over what Mao called the four old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. This wasn't just propaganda coming from the top. It was the people themselves performing it and enforcing it. And that dynamic hasn't disappeared, it's adapted. Today, under President Xi Jinping, a version of that same culture lives online. Participation is still the point. It's just been scaled up and digitized. And this time the enforcers are the government's 50 cent army. People allegedly paid 50 cents every time they post something that supports the government. Do we have any idea how big the 50 Cent army is?

[Darren Linville]

I've seen huge ranges in estimates, but it may be hundreds of thousands because it's typically people working part time. And I've also seen.

[Dena Temple Raston]

This is Darren Linville, a professor at Clemson University and the co director and founder of Clemson's Media Forensics Hub. He studies how these campaigns operate. And he says what's striking is how normal participation can feel. Some research suggests that the 50 cent army isn't just a group of government officials pushing out the government message, but it can also include university students posting for the party as part of everyday life.

[Darren Linville]

You know, when I was in university, I was in a number of clubs. I did some theater and other activity after class. And in China, you post on behalf of Xi in your spare time.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Sometimes people are given specific instructions what to say, how to say it, when to post messages about, say, the strength of the economy or the stability of the country. Other times, they're sent in to respond to something unfolding in real time, a story starting to spread. That's when these networks shift from routine posting to something more coordinated. Because the goal isn't just to promote the government's message. It's to shape the conversation around it. And you can see that play out when something controversial pops up. When reports started to surface about forced labor in China's Xinjiang region, hundreds of thousands of people from ethnic minorities, including the Uyghur community, are being forced by the Chinese authorities to pick cotton in the far west. The response from China wasn't to argue the facts. It was to change the feed. Beijing's 50 Cent army flooded the same hashtags with generic posts about Xinjiang and the Uyghurs who lived there without a mention of forced labor.

[Darren Linville]

So they flooded conversations around Xinjiang and Xinjiangcotton with overtly positive content. So posts that were happy Uyghur people, posts about Uyghur culture, posts about Uyghur children going to school.

[Dena Temple Raston]

The idea was simple. Don't rebut the story. Just bury it under volume, under something that's easier to look at. It's a different kind of information warfare. Less argument, more saturation, more chances to shape what people see and, over time, what they come to believe. And that approach keeps evolving. What started as loosely organized posting has morphed into more deliberate networks, more coordination. Researchers call one of these networks spamouflage, also known as spamouflage Dragon. They're linked to China's Ministry of Public Security, and their goal is to commandeer the message outside of China.

[Darren Linville]

Spamouflage is the state police. So just like the Chinese state police target dissent in the state, they were also trying to do that abroad. And that's what spamouflage was. It has evolved into doing other things, into engaging in other political things on behalf of the Chinese state.

[Dena Temple Raston]

So China's playbook shows us how propaganda scales, not just shaping what people inside China think, but influencing what the rest of the world sees. And sometimes it shows up in places you don't expect, like here in the United States.

[Darren Linville]

We saw tens of thousands of posts from thousands of accounts that can best be described as vaguely supportive of Marco Rubio.

[Dena Temple Raston]

When we come back, how that system works. Stay with us. This show is supported by Human Rights Watch. There are more displaced people in the world than at any time since World War II. The great unrooting is a limited series that tells this epic story through the eyes of a young man from Myanmar. Where do you go when you have to flee? What do you take with you? What if they don't want you when you get there? It's a story of flight and survival of climate change and social media of borders and passports and hope. The great unrooting from Human Rights Watch wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Dena Temple Raston]

Welcome back. Today we're looking at how China's propaganda system doesn't just shape what people inside the country see, but shapes the conversations far beyond its borders. Before the break, we heard about a flood of social media posts, thousands of accounts pushing a similar message that wasn't organic, it was part of a strategy. The goal isn't to win an argument, it's to overwhelm it. Don't fight the story, bury it. Chinese bot networks are built to flood the zone, to amplify what helps the government and crowd out everything else. And over time, that changes what people see, what gets shared, even what starts to feel true. And now we're seeing that playbook move beyond China.

[David Borenstein]

Senator Marco Rubio, Congresswoman val Deming decision 2022 before you vote.

[Dena Temple Raston]

As votes were being counted in Florida's Senate race, something strange started to happen online in the early hours of the morning. There was this sudden surge of posts about then Senator Marco Rubio. Not from journalists, not from the campaigns, but from accounts that didn't quite look real. And the messages were odd, with broken English and repetitive phrasing and images that didn't quite match the moment. But they were everywhere.

[Darren Linville]

We saw tens of thousands of posts from thousands of accounts that can best be described as vaguely supportive of Marco Rubio. But its appearance was really amateurish and

[Dena Temple Raston]

the posts he spotted looked almost like comic strips.

[Darren Linville]

It was not his official campaign content and it was being posted by accounts that had just been created that had no followers, that, you know, nobody was going to see this content, which was

[Dena Temple Raston]

a head scratcher because engagement is pretty much the point of social media, especially during an election. The post kept coming until mid morning and then just as quickly as they appeared, they stopped. So Darren and his team kept digging. They traced that burst of election day activity back to China and more specifically to spam. A flage. A new report shows a rise in what's known as spamouflage, with accounts claiming to be US Voters Posting about hot button issues. At first glance, you might assume that this was about influencing the election. But the Rubio race wasn't close. He won by 16 points. Also, the posts themselves were strange choices. Some were neutral and even positive about Rubio, even though he's one of China's most vocal critics. So if this wasn't about helping a candidate, what was it? So do you think that Rubio was kind of a canary in the coal mine?

[Darren Linville]

That's my suspicion.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Darren decided this wasn't about influencing the outcome. It was an experiment, a chance to test how these networks behave, how information moves. It's a kind of dry run for some moment when the stakes might be higher, for when it really matters. And that's the thing about these campaigns. They don't just try to shape events. Sometimes they're rehearsing for them. That's why most of the activity tied to spamouflage doesn't wait for an election. It's constant.

[Darren Linville]

China, and Spamouflage Dragon in particular, routinely uses these accounts that have no followers and were just created. And they. They use them to engage in flooding

[Dena Temple Raston]

attacks, like what happened just before the Beijing Winter Olympics. In 2022, human rights groups began calling for a boycott. Pro China accounts moved in and flooded the same hashtags and drowned them out. It turns out By 2019, China had put its Ministry of Public Security, its main police authority, in charge of these kinds of operations.

[Ji Fengli]

Ministry of Public Security's involvement signals a more severe level of repression.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Ji Fengli is an independent researcher who studies China's disinformation campaigns.

[Ji Fengli]

It indicates that the target, or the situation itself, is regarded as high priority, a national security threat to the Chinese authorities. And it's also large scale in terms of operations and often more aggressive in nature.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Now, inside China, spamouflage goes by a different name, the 912 special project working Group.

[Ji Fengli]

They got a few duty teams. Sometimes during certain sensitive time periods, they will have more officers working on this. And they're operating in Dongcheng district, which is a district in Beijing.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And they work in shifts, creating accounts, hijacking others, buying access on the dark web.

[Ji Fengli]

Basically, Beijing's time, working hours, probably 9 to 5, 9 to 6, Monday to Friday with a lunch break.

[Dena Temple Raston]

The US isn't taking this lying down. In 2023, the Justice Department indicted 34 officers working for China's Ministry of Public Security. It was an attempt to hold China accountable, but so far it hasn't slowed things down much. If anything, the operations are stepping up,

[Ji Fengli]

the scope is expanding, and the targets they choose is high value targets that are influential on China related policies. Human rights activists, the Chinese diaspora communities who oppose Chinese policies and criticize Xi Jinping for interfering. Taiwan elections, now the us

[Dena Temple Raston]

They've targeted foreign governments, Taiwan, the Philippines, and their tactics keep changing. There's more automation, more coordination, more scale. And now they're using bots software designed to post, amplify and repeat at speeds no human can match. Now Darren Linville at Clemson is seeing a new twist. China appears to have partnered with dark marketing companies outside the country, propagandists for hire, and they amplify spamouflage content.

[Darren Linville]

These companies are the sorts of companies that are usually based in South Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, but they are companies that work for everybody. Disinformation is a global market. And just like modern warfare has arms dealers, the modern information warfare has arms dealers as well. I mean, we've seen the same set of bots. The same company that amplifies spamouflage content also amplifies Russian disinformation.

[Dena Temple Raston]

In other words, the same infrastructure can be rented by anyone. Different clients, same machinery. And as these networks grow, the noise gets harder to ignore. This is Click Here. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and prx. Today's show was written and produced by Megan Dietrich, Sean Powers, Erica Gaeda, Zach Hirsch, and Casey Georgie. It was edited by Karen Duffin and Sarah Covedo, and fact checked by Darren Ancrum. Original music is by Ben Levingston, with additional music from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley, our illustrator is Megan Goff, and our sound designers and engineers are Jake Cook and Jesse Niswonger. Find us on X or Facebook at click here. Show or leave us a voice message at 6615, CH Hawk sometimes we'll turn those moments into reporting, sometimes into a conversation, and sometimes into a future story you'll hear on this show. I'm Dena Temple Raston, and thanks for listening.

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