50 cent army

The Chinese 50 cent Army (五毛) is the nickname given to Chinese internet trolls who post disinformation on various social media platforms in Chinese. English, and other languages. A 2021 report from the Jamestown Foundation claims the CCP holds 2 million paid internet commentators. It also has a network of 20 million part-time volunteers to carry out online trolling. The Washington Post reported in 2016 that the Chinese 50 cent Army makes about 450 million social media postings per year. After the CCP global pandemic outbreak, the 50 cent Army was particularly active on Facebook and Twitter, promoting the CCP propaganda war and attacking critics of socialism, communism, and totalitarianism.

In the 2020 Presidential election in the United States, the 50 cent Army heavily favored former Obama Vice President Joe Biden and ruthlessly attacked U.S. President Donald Trump.

The 50 cent Army, which is well known in Taiwan and Hong Kong, are to said to be actually paid about .03 cents per posting by the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese military.

History

According to the Epoch Times, the first stage was from 2004 to 2009, during which the CCP’s trolls mainly focused on the deletion of posts, sales and promotion, and advocacy of rights on behalf of others.

The second stage was from 2010 to 2013, which was the business development stage of the CCP’s trolls. In this stage, major internet troll companies began to act as public relations agents for individuals, enterprises, local CCP parties, government agencies, and the CCP’s nongovernmental institutions, to deal with online crises. During this stage, the 50 cent Army, civilian internet trolls hired by the CCP, started to appear on the internet to participate in public events.

The third stage was from 2014 to 2021, when the business transformed. In February 2014, the CCP officially established the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs, under which is the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), or Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission. Five business sectors were established to work under the CAC: the Internet Commentary Work Bureau, the Internet Social Work Bureau, the Mobile Network Administration Bureau, the Internet Security Coordination Bureau, and the International Cooperation Bureau. Their responsibilities include internet opinion monitoring, management, control of the CCP’s internet trolls, public relations related to internet issues, overseas propaganda, and the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

Following the establishment of the CAC, it launched a cyber campaign to consolidate various independent civilian hackers and troll companies under its control. At the same time, the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) recruited tens of millions of university students to work as part-time internet trolls in major universities across the PRC, and the Central Committee of Political and Legal Affairs recruited millions of detainees in major prisons as full-time cyber trolls. In this way, cyber hackers and trolls have evolved from a “guerrilla army” into a “regular army” controlled by the CCP.

2018 Taiwan election interference

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, from Tsai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told Al Jazeera in 2018,

"We received propaganda warfare coming from China for years, but this is taking a very different form,. It’s coming in not from newspapers or their propaganda machine but through our social media, online chat groups, Facebook, the zombie accounts set up, somewhere, by the Chinese government....It’s a more serious problem because China is so close to Taiwan, language-wise. They don’t have the cultural or language barrier and can easily fabricate news and they know the mentality of Chinese thinking, so it’s easier for them to orchestrate this misinformation.”

False stories were traced to servers in the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party and it’s 50 Cent Army. Beijing has reached deep into Taiwan, sowing division and confusion through online disinformation, recruiting business figures, and funnelling cash to pro-Beijing politicians.

Further reading

• Communist China Uses Internet Trolls To Haze Wuhan Diary Author
• Chinese Twitter Accounts Masquerading As Taiwanese Offered Fake Apologies To Dr. Tedros

See also

• Bernie Bros
• United Front Work Department