What lies inside the internet can be hard to read. It might be designed to sway opinions or seed doubt. Recently, the owner company behind Facebook, Meta, announced the shutdown of a major digital operation aimed at shaping public opinion worldwide. The operation appears to have been led from China, with security forces suspected of backing a covert effort that spread negative commentary about competing entities. This concern crossed borders into the United States and beyond.
Meta publicly detailed the scale of the takedown, noting the removal of up to 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 pages, 15 groups, and 15 additional accounts tied to the broader effort. The crackdown extended to Instagram, where activity had been ongoing since 2018. The campaign touched hundreds of profiles on other platforms as well, including TikTok, YouTube, Blogspot, LiveJournal, and others, with a footprint across at least 50 digital spaces.
“This is the largest single-network crackdown we have ever completed”, stated a Meta security leader, describing the coordinated nature of the operation as the biggest covert campaign known to date. The company emphasized that the objective seemed to be to study and imitate influence tactics, echoing patterns seen in disinformation campaigns managed from Russia and other regions. Pro-China messaging appeared in Mandarin as well as languages such as French, Russian, German, Korean, Thai, and Welsh.
Destinations to Beijing
The Meta report outlines that the various eliminated groups were coordinated by law enforcement in different parts of China, operating in shifts with routine breaks. The effort reportedly gathered around 560,000 Facebook followers; however, Meta believes a large portion of those accounts were fake, purchased from spammers in countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Chinese officials paused public comment on the findings, with statements from representatives saying they hoped the reporting would be objective and free of double standards. They urged a clear distinction between misinformation and truth, asking to focus on accurate information while countering rumors. The stance was echoed by a government spokesperson, who called for responsible handling of online content.
Earlier, Meta disabled a coordinated pro-Western influence effort aimed at supporting Western narratives in regions such as Ukraine, while noting mixed reception among users in Asia and the Middle East. Meta stressed that the long-running effort would have limited impact, describing it as noisy but mostly ineffective due to internal inconsistencies and grammatical errors in many posts.
Dual Voltage
This marks the seventh pro-China influence operation Meta has shuttered in six years. In the previous year, the company removed hundreds of fake accounts attempting to sway opinions around national elections in the United States. The timing of these actions comes at a moment of tense relations between the two nations. Washington and Beijing have pursued sharper policy positions, with observers noting growing efforts to control information flows online. At the same time, official discussions continue about trade and technology relations among major players in the region.
These developments arrive as leaders in the United States have signaled a renewed focus on digital security and information integrity. Executives and policymakers have called for vigilance against coordinated manipulation while endorsing approaches to safeguard openness and fair dialogue online. The broader question remains how platforms, governments, and communities can distinguish truth from manipulation while preserving free expression in a global digital space.