Love ’em or hate ’em, Google is an Internet force to be reckoned with, and they do a lot more than provide web searches and cat videos.
In the background of the Internet, Google employs thousands of staff members who’s aim is to provide us mere-mortals with a safe playground called the www.
Threat Analysis Group
One such department of superheroes is the Threat Analysis Group (TAG) who work round the clock to remove malicious, dangerous and misleading information from the Internet.
In a recent TAG bulletin, Google reported on the work they have been doing to remove content from a Chinese affiliated Information Operations (IO) group known as DRAGONBRIDGE (A.K.A. Spamouflage Dragon)
In the report, TAG say that most DRAGONBRIDGE activity is low quality content without a political message, populated across many channels and blogs. However, a small fraction of DRAGONBRIDGE accounts also post about current events with messaging that pushes pro-China views.
DRAGONBRIDGE narratives in 2022 spanned a wide range of news topics — ranging from China’s Covid-19 response to the war in Ukraine — and included a higher volume of content critical of the US. The actor has primarily targeted Chinese speakers, but some narratives were in English and other languages.
In 2022, Google disrupted over 50,000 instances of DRAGONBRIDGE activity across YouTube, Blogger, and AdSense, reflecting the continued focus on this actor and success in scaling detection efforts across Google products.
Google have terminated over 100,000 DRAGONBRIDGE accounts in the IO network’s lifetime and despite their scale and profuse content production, DRAGONBRIDGE achieved practically no organic engagement from real viewers.
In 2022, the majority of DRAGONBRIDGE channels had 0 subscribers when Google disrupted them, and over 80% of DRAGONBRIDGE videos had fewer than 100 views. Engagement for DRAGONBRIDGE’s blogs on Blogger was also low, with nearly 95% receiving 10 or fewer views for blogs terminated in December.
While DRAGONBRIDGE has not attracted a wide organic audience, they are persistent and adaptable. Since TAG started tracking the network in 2019, DRAGONBRIDGE has consistently experimented with new tactics, new formats and higher quality content.
As they evolve over time, DRAGONBRIDGE’s coordinated inauthentic activity may eventually attract the attention of real users, and for this reason, TAG and Mandiant track DRAGONBRIDGE closely and Google has taken an aggressive approach to identifying and removing their content.
Targeting overseas Chinese populations
In 2022, DRAGONBRIDGE increased focus on and sharpened their criticism of the US with posts mostly in Mandarin, in English and other languages.
DRAGONBRIDGE’s pro-China content included narratives praising China’s pandemic response, criticism of pro-democracy protests, and significantly in 2022, more strident support for unification with Taiwan.
Google saw an increase in DRAGONBRIDGE activity amidst heightened cross-strait (China-Taiwan) developments. Following the announcement of a possible visit to Taipei by then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in late July 2022, DRAGONBRIDGE shifted some of its focus towards criticism of Speaker Pelosi, along with her family and finances. This was in line with usual DRAGONBRIDGE patterns of attempting to discredit US political leadership.
However, during and after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) military drills straddling Taiwan in early August 2022, DRAGONBRIDGE sharply escalated its rhetoric, uploading militaristic videos of the PLA and political videos calling for Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen and her political allies to “surrender,” moving away from criticism of Speaker Pelosi.
DRAGONBRIDGE displayed unusually coherent behavior in using uniform hashtags and titles across channels, while swiftly and repeatedly uploading topical, high-production-value content that was not interspersed with the usual misdirecting spam.
The pace and manner of this pivot highlighted DRAGONBRIDGE’s additional sensitivity to geopolitical developments in China’s immediate neighborhood, and Taiwan in particular.
Disinformation is king
In a world where most people receive their news from online sources, with a rise in AI developed content, it is becoming easier and easier to post truisms which can reach into the subconscious of a large part of the population and be used to steer opinions and emotions.
Disinformation campaigns are big business online, and it’s becoming harder for the average layperson to spot these fake (or altered) perceptions.
The work undertaken by departments such as the Threat Analysis Group is vital in keeping the World Wide Web a safe place to play, educate, conduct business, and live.