[Politics] Overseas Farm Page Accounts Flood with Fake Breaking News, Experts Warn of Suspected 2026 Election Campaigning
bellala 央廣6h ago
Facebook has recently seen large-scale coordinated flooding, with multiple fan pages simultaneously reposting old news such as "National Alert" and "Kaohsiung City Emergency Announcement" within minutes. Cybersecurity experts investigating found that 163 fan pages posted a total of 383 posts, most of which were managed by personnel outside of Hong Kong, Malaysia, and China. The operational model is highly consistent with China's "Borderless Group," suspected of using account farming to expand influence and pre-emptively lay the groundwork for cognitive warfare in the 2026 local elections.
On the afternoon of June 15, the Facebook social platform experienced a large-scale flooding. From "National Alert Suddenly Rang Loudly" and "Kaohsiung City Emergency Announcement Made" to "Emergency Suspension of Work and Classes Announced by Kaohsiung," these three pieces of content were all news that had been truthfully reported by the media. However, they were simultaneously reposted by a large number of fan pages with nearly identical layouts, fixed sequences, and high frequency, drawing the attention of the cybersecurity community.
A cybersecurity expert who has been tracking overseas information manipulation for a long time stated today (20th) that the three waves of content resulted in a total of 383 posts distributed across 163 unique fan pages. During the most intensive period, 34 posts appeared within 5 minutes, with an average of one account posting every 10 seconds, and in a single minute, up to 14 different fan pages simultaneously published the same content.
Experts analyzed that these accounts not only concentrated their posting on the same topic but also followed the same sequence for different topics, exhibiting high regularity. This clearly exceeds natural dissemination patterns and appears to be scheduled operations by the same backend system according to a fixed list of accounts.
According to investigations, all three waves of operations were first initiated by news fan pages, followed by a relay of reposts from numerous farm accounts. Content such as "National Alert" and "Kaohsiung City Emergency Announcement" originally came from Taiwanese news media, while "Emergency Suspension of Work and Classes" was initiated by self-media accounts, with multiple accounts synchronizing within just 10 seconds.
The cybersecurity expert pointed out that this type of technique is a typical content farm operational model, quickly attracting clicks by repurposing media materials and then amplifying reach through coordinated actions. Further analysis revealed that as high as 98.4% of the 383 posts included comment links, and for those without comments, the links were directly embedded in the articles, guiding readers to content farm websites to generate advertising revenue through traffic.
The cybersecurity expert stated that what is more alarming is that most of these fan pages are managed by overseas individuals. Comparative analysis of fan page transparency data found that 154 out of 163 fan pages were managed overseas, accounting for 94.5%. Among them, 106 fan pages involved Hong Kong, 82 involved Malaysia, and 17 fan pages had management personnel clearly located in China. In contrast, only 9 fan pages were purely managed by Taiwan.
Furthermore, cybersecurity experts analyzed that 80 out of the 163 fan pages had changed their names, with some changing names up to 6 times. Additionally, many accounts originally belonged to adult, explicit, or local community pages, and were later transformed into exposé, entertainment, or news-type fan pages.
Experts pointed out that by acquiring existing accounts with a large number of followers and then rebranding them for operation, it is possible to effectively bypass platform restrictions on new accounts' trust levels and rapidly accumulate influence. Based on multiple characteristics such as posting patterns, management origin, and traffic diversion structure, cybersecurity experts infer that this operation is highly suspected to be related to China's "Borderless Group" in Qinhuangdao, Hebei.
Cybersecurity experts stated that the "Borderless Group" has long been regarded as an important online operational system for China's cognitive warfare against Taiwan. It has previously operated large content farm websites and has been repeatedly named by domestic and international research institutions and scholars for its involvement in public opinion manipulation related to Taiwanese elections.
Experts pointed out that in recent years, the "Borderless Group" has begun to incorporate artificial intelligence technology, rewriting articles from Chinese sources into traditional Chinese content that conforms to Taiwanese terminology and social context. This content is then disseminated through a large number of non-political fan pages to reduce public vigilance. Normally, these pages attract followers with content on parenting, health, entertainment, and lifestyle, but can quickly switch to channels for political message dissemination at critical moments.
Research also shows that these types of accounts have a low proportion of political content during normal times, but significantly increase political message deployment during election periods. Cybersecurity experts warn that as the 2026 local elections approach, similar operations may expand again. The public should be vigilant, not only by paying attention to the location of fan page management personnel and name change records but also by avoiding clicking on links from unknown sources to avoid unknowingly becoming an audience for overseas information manipulation.
Source Link: https://www.rti.org.tw/news?uid=3&pid=215654
How does this article make you feel?
0 people reacted