Microsoft report says fake Chinese accounts could be working to sway US electors

According to the report, China has rejected the finding.

A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said that accusations of China using AI to create fake social media accounts were "full of prejudice and malicious speculation" and that China advocates for the safe use of AI, it said.

In a new research report, Microsoft the findings point to a suspected Chinese information operation implemented through the social media accounts.

The campaign showed resemblance to activity which the US Department of Justice has attributed to "an elite group within (China's) Ministry of Public Security," the Reuters report said citing Microsoft.

The researchers did not state which social media platforms were used for the alleged operation but screenshots in the report indicated that posts from what appeared to be Facebook and Twitter, now known as X.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters that the company's researcher used a "multifaceted attribution model," which relies on "technical evidence, behavioural evidence and contextual evidence."

The campaign began using generative artificial intelligence technology in about March 2023 to create politically charged content in English and "mimic US voters," Microsoft said.

Generative AI can create images, text and other media from scratch.

The new content is much more "eye-catching than the awkward visuals used in previous campaigns by Chinese nation-state actors, which relied on digital drawings, stock photo collages, and other manual graphic designs," the researchers wrote, reported Reuters.

The Microsoft report stated that the accounts suspected to be involved in the action tried to look American by listing their public location as within the United States, posting American political slogans, and sharing hashtags relating to domestic political issues, it added.