Security News > 2023 > January > Google nukes 50,000 accounts pushing Chinese disinformation
Google's Threat Analysis Group terminated tens of thousands of accounts linked to a group known as "Dragonbridge" or "Spamouflage Dragon" that is disseminating pro-Chinese disinformation across multiple online platforms.
According to Google, Dragonbridge gets new Google Accounts from bulk account sellers, and, in some instances, they've even switched to accounts previously used by financially motivated actors repurposed for posting disinformation videos and blogs.
"Most DRAGONBRIDGE activity is low quality content without a political message, populated across many channels and blogs. However, a small fraction of DRAGONBRIDGE accounts also post about current events with messaging that pushes pro-China views," Google TAG's Zak Butler and Jonas Taege said.
"In 2022, the overwhelming majority of DRAGONBRIDGE content Google disrupted never reached a real audience. Among the 53,177 channels we disabled in 2022, 58% had zero subscribers and 42% of their videos had zero views. 83% of those videos had fewer than 100 views."
The group, which has been monitored by Google TAG analysts since 2019, has consistently switched tactics and experimented with new formats and higher-quality content.
"Despite their failure to gain traction with an authentic audience, DRAGONBRIDGE generates high volumes of content across multiple platforms, is persistent and continues to experiment in their tactics and techniques," Google added.