Beijing-linked ‘information operation’ identified

A task force monitoring possible threats to Canada’s federal election says it has observed an “information operation” by a Chinese news account that is targeting the upcoming April 28 vote.

The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force provided an update on Monday and said the operation was taking place on the social media platform WeChat.

It was launched by “Youli-Youmian,” which SITE noted is the platform’s most popular news account that, according to intelligence reporting, has links to the PRC Chinese Communist Party’s Central and Political and Legal Affairs Commission.

“The content of this information operation contains stories about the Prime Minister, Liberal Party of Canada leader, and candidate in Nepean, Mark Carney,” SITE said in a news release on Monday.

The task force shared during the briefing that it noticed large spikes of “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” before the campaign and during the writ period.

SITE said a Liberal party representative was briefed about its findings on Sunday. The task force added that it will discuss the issue with WeChat developer Tencent.

“This case is contained to one platform and has not spread further, nor is it affecting Canadians’ abilities to make an informed decision about their vote,” SITE said.

“However, it is important for voters to be aware of this type of activity, and to be cautious with the information they might be seeing both online and offline.”

Earlier in the election campaign, a senior intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service warned that China was “highly likely” to use AI tools to interfere with the vote.

With files from The Canadian Press