Chrystia Freeland’s Liberal leadership campaign has been targeted by “co-ordinated and malicious activity” linked back to a WeChat account accused of having ties to the Chinese government, according to the task force set up to monitor foreign election interference.
The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE) said in a release Friday the activity was traced to WeChat’s “most popular news account — an anonymous blog that has been previously linked by experts at the China Digital Times to the People’s Republic of China.”
The immensely popular Chinese social media platform WeChat is part of daily life in the country, from news to communication to banking, and has more than a billion users worldwide.
In a statement, SITE, which is made up of senior Canadian intelligence and security officials, wrote that over 30 WeChat news accounts took part in the campaign between Jan. 29 and Feb. 3.
“The campaign received very high levels of engagement and views, with WeChat news articles disparaging Ms. Freeland netting over 140,000 interactions,” it said.
Chrystia Freeland’s Liberal leadership campaign has been targeted by ‘co-ordinated and malicious activity’ traced back to a WeChat account accused of having ties to the Chinese government, according to the task force set up to monitor foreign election interference.
The task force estimates that two to three million WeChat users saw the campaign globally.
SITE said it briefed Freeland and the Liberal Party of Canada on Friday.
“I will not be intimidated by Chinese foreign interference,” said Freeland in her own social media post. “Having spent years confronting authoritarian regimes, I know firsthand the importance of defending our freedoms.”
The task force was initially set up to monitor federal elections and has since also taken on byelections and the Liberal leadership race.
The campaign was observed by Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism, a member of SITE that watches for state-sponsored disinformation online. The task force also includes representatives of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP and the Communications Security Establishment Canada.
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