![]() ![]() Chinese-speakers who moved to the US as adults are more likely to rely on Chinese platforms such as WeChat to get their news and can be less familiar with the political and education system, making them less able to see through misinformation. People trying to fight Chinese-language misinformation describe a generation gap in internet use by first- and second-generation immigrants. In response, PiYaoBa published an article in Chinese offering detailed context, corrections to the false information, and links to reliable sources, albeit all in English. Some posts had a uniquely Chinese take, comparing the FBI search to unauthorized raids on homes during China’s Cultural Revolution. They included a story circulating on public WeChat channels that claimed the FBI raid to retrieve government documents from Trump’s home in Florida was orchestrated by the Biden administration to help Democrats in the midterms. None of the activists WIRED spoke to saw evidence of Chinese government involvement in spreading election misinformation-although the blogger More Less pointed out that some nationalists in China welcome anything that weakens US democracy. “It’s pretty easy for them to skirt the minimal moderation YouTube has in place for non-English content,” she says, including by avoiding certain words or using slang terms-for instance a word that sounds like the second character in the Mandarin word for vaccine. She asked that her last name be withheld to avoid online harassment. On YouTube, self-styled newscasters have become a core news source for some Chinese speakers in the US, offering political hot takes that often slide into misinformation, says Jenny L., who helps track disinformation and misinformation for Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, a nonprofit in Washington, DC. Other accounts that share misinformation appear to be aimed at monetizing clicks by translating the kind of extreme content that also goes viral in English. ![]() Well-funded media outlets affiliated with the US far right, such as the GTV Media Group and Epoch Media Group, produce original but hyperpartisan content in Chinese. Misleading political posts in Chinese come from a variety of sources and include viewpoints from the left and right-although researchers report a sharp rise in far-right content since 2020. Non-English publications in the US, which often serve specific ethnic groups, generally don’t have the staff to cover politics in depth. Unlike for those working against misinformation distributed in English, there isn’t a ready supply of reporting from trustworthy news sites, fact-checking pages, or government publications to point people to. More established nonprofits bring heft but often promote liberal causes and can be seen as partisan and biased. Individuals like More Less, and small grassroots groups, aim to fill in the gaps but have limited resources. Meta did not respond to a request for comment Twitter did not comment. Elena Hernandez, a spokesperson for YouTube, says the platform’s moderation teams include people with Mandarin and Cantonese expertise. Although Meta and Twitter have both announced efforts to label misleading information in other languages, reports by whistleblowers and in the media suggest, moderation falls short in languages other than English. When Chinese-language misinformation appears on US platforms like YouTube or Facebook, activists say it seems to get less actively moderated than English content, a pattern that has also been documented for other communities in the US that use languages other than English, particularly Spanish.
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