China’s Useful Idiots
The ChiComs are paying American TikTok influencers to spread propaganda in support of the Olympics.
As discussions about the diplomatic boycott remain in the spotlight, China is doing damage control. It has hit up social media to use U.S. TikTok influencers to help spread propaganda and encourage the American people to focus on how awesome the 2022 Winter Olympics will be.
In the wake of growing tensions with China over Taiwan, the disappearing of professional tennis star Peng Shuai, and the systematic genocide of the Uyghur Muslims, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would be staging a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Games hosted in Beijing. Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom followed suit. But many Americans think this diplomatic boycott is not enough and are calling for a full boycott.
China decided to use social media influencers to ramp up a “good will” propaganda campaign.
Anna Massoglia, an investigative researcher, revealed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “hired a firm to recruit social media influencers in a new digital propaganda campaign targeting the U.S. amid controversy over diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Olympics & censorship of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s disappearance.”
According to the spreadsheets of which she posted photos, the bulk of the hired influencers (70%) were to hype up everything cool about Beijing and its Olympic facilities; the mid-tier (20%) were to focus on spreading good China-U.S. interactions and political exchanges; and the smallest amount of influencers (10%) were to disseminate propaganda directly from the Chinese consulate.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, CCP media already spent millions of dollars trying to influence Americans. If only we had a president who warned about the Chinese using TikTok for nefarious purposes and tried to ban it. Oh, wait…
China and its spidery-like web even have sway in our academic institutions. Confucius institutes were ostensibly created on college campuses in 2004 to promote the learning of Chinese language and culture, but as of 2020, these institutes have been classified by the U.S. government as propaganda peddlers for the Chinese government. There are still 30 schools in the U.S. that have these institutes up and running in spite of the designation. They could be shut down today, if only the current administration would put pressure on these universities to close them down.
Not only is the current administration most likely not going to stem the flow of this foreign influence on our shores, it has signaled that it will probably go the appeasement route. So much for our allies, Taiwan.
To the American TikTok influencers who are bending to the CCP propaganda machine for money and followers, you are a disgrace to your country. China has used you for the useful idiots that you are.
