China troll army’s battle expeditions leap Great Firewall to target Hong Kong anti-government protests
- Secretive Chinese nationalist group targets Hong Kong protesters and supporters on social media platforms banned on mainland
A secretive Chinese nationalist group – best known for its internet trolling attacks – has stepped up its online information war in recent weeks, spreading pro-China memes and targeting supporters of Hong Kong’s anti-government protests in so-called “battle expeditions”.
The state media-endorsed Diba forum’s latest targets have included high-profile Hong Kong figures such as Canto-pop singer Denise Ho Wan-sze, a vocal attendee of the protests, and pan-democrat lawmaker Claudia Mo Man-ching.
Mo’s Facebook page was spammed with pictures of the Chinese flag on Monday, shortly after it was thrown into the harbour for the second time in three days by protesters. But they were eventually outnumbered by supporters of the protests, with many leaving comments remarking on the number of wumao – or “50 cent trolls” as they are known.
Diba’s troll army is believed to be behind memes depicting hard hat-wearing protesters as cockroaches and zombies, as well as a lexicon of slurs such as “rubbish youth”, “yellow zombies” (yellow is the signature colour of the pro-democracy movement) and “LIHKG dogs”, the latter referring to the popular Reddit-like local forum used by protesters to coordinate and spread information.
Diba’s modus operandi is also to cherry-pick and amplify social media content from Hong Kong voices speaking out against the protests, as well as highlighting reports of harassment towards Hong Kong police officers – including the leaking of their relatives’ personal details online – which is shared via Weibo to its estimated 20 million members for further dissemination.