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China has long sought to discredit Chinese critics abroad, but targeting a 16-year daughter of a Chinese dissident in the United States by falsely portraying her as a drug user, an arsonist and a prostitute, is an new escalation, one security expert says.
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U.S. Federal law prohibits severe online harassment or threats, but that appears to be no deterrent to China’s efforts.
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"They’re exporting their repression efforts and human rights abuses — targeting, threatening and harassing those who dare question their legitimacy or authority even outside China, including right here in the U.S.,” Christopher A. Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told the American Bar Association in Washington in April.
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Mr. Wray said China was exerting “intense, almost Mafia-style pressure” to try to silence dissidents now living legally in the United States, including activities online and off, like posting fliers near their homes.
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Deng Yuwen, a prominent Chinese writer who now lives in exile in the suburbs of Philadelphia in the U.S., has regularly criticized China and its authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping. China’s reaction of late has been severe, with crude and ominously personal attacks online.
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A covert propaganda network linked to the country’s security services has barraged not just Mr. Deng but also his teenage daughter with sexually suggestive and threatening posts on popular social media platforms, according to researchers at both Clemson University and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
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The content, posted by users with fake identities, has appeared in replies to Mr. Deng’s posts on X, the social platform, as well as the accounts of public schools in their community, where the daughter, who is 16, has been falsely portrayed as a drug user, an arsonist and a prostitute.
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Vulgar comments targeting the girl have also shown up on community pages on Facebook and even sites like TripAdvisor; Patch, a community news platform; and Niche, a website that helps parents choose schools, according to the researchers. As soon as these posts are deleted, Chinese trolls switch to new accounts to leave attacking text and language again.
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The harassment fits a pattern of online intimidation that has raised alarms in many countries where China’s attacks have become increasingly brazen. The campaign has included thousands of posts the researchers have linked to a network of social media accounts known as Spamouflage or Dragonbridge, an arm of the country’s vast propaganda apparatus.
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China has long sought to discredit Chinese critics, but targeting a teenager in the United States is an escalation, said Darren Linvill, a founder of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson, whose researchers documented the campaign against Mr. Deng.
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Federal law prohibits severe online harassment or threats, but that appears to be no deterrent to China’s efforts.