Pro-China Group Uses Dragonbridge Campaign to Target Rare Earth Mining Companies

A pro-China affect campaign singled out unusual earth mining firms in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. with negative messaging in an unsuccessful endeavor to manipulate public discourse to China’s benefit.

Specific corporations included Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd, Canada’s Appia Exceptional Earths & Uranium Corp, and the American business United states Scarce Earth, menace intelligence organization Mandiant stated in a report very last 7 days, calling the digital campaign Dragonbridge.

“It qualified an industry of strategic significance to the PRC, such as precisely 3 industrial entities tough the PRC’s international industry dominance in that industry,” Mandiant noted.

The objective, the business noted, was to instigate environmental protests versus the corporations and propagate counter-narratives in reaction to opportunity or planned exceptional earths generation pursuits involving the targets.

This comprised a network of thousands of inauthentic accounts throughout numerous social media platforms and forums, that labored in tandem to disseminate content material that seemingly lifted concerns more than alleged environmental, health and fitness, and labor issues above the functions of the 3 firms.

Some of the bogus accounts masqueraded as Texas citizens in a public 1,200-member Fb group termed “End LYNAS! NO to Lynas Exporting and Generating An additional Toxic Legacy,” alleging the mining business challenges exposing community populations to radioactive contamination and poisoning.

A majority of the posts were being largely in English, with confined material published in Chinese and Malay. That explained, the action is claimed to have acquired only constrained engagement in the sort of likes and opinions from other accounts.

This is not the initially time the actor has been linked to disinformation operations carried out in help of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). While previously functions in June 2019 had been mainly focused on discrediting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, they have since sought to physically mobilize protestors in the U.S. in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“DRAGONBRIDGE’s focusing on of added scarce earths mining corporations underscores the campaign’s ability to observe developments and reply appropriately,” the researchers explained.

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Some parts of this write-up are sourced from:
thehackernews.com