Alex Trelinski
AN AMERICAN online analyst company says the Chinese spearheaded a social media campaign that called for the overthrow of Spain’s government.
The postings involved impersonating people criticising flood relief efforts in Valencia.
The claim has been made by New York-based Graphika who said an operation called Spamouflage- linked to the Chinese government- posed this month as human rights group Safeguard Defenders.
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They spread online calls for the removal of the Sanchez government over their response to the October floods in Valencia.
“This is the first time we have seen Spamouflage directly calling to overthrow a foreign government,” Graphika said in its latest report.
Graphika says the Spamouflage campaign has been operating in several countries since 2017 including impersonating US voters during the 2024 presidential election.
It said it detected dozens of accounts across social media platforms masquerading as Safeguard Defenders to post videos and images criticising the handling of the floods by the national government as well as the regional Valencia administration led by Carlos Mazon.
In one video overlaid with the Safeguard Defenders’ logo that was posted on X and has since been taken down, a masked person claiming to be from the organisation says they will ‘expose’ authorities for giving up on ordinary people.
The video ends with a call to overthrow the Spanish government.
Spamouflage has repeatedly targeted Safeguard Defenders since the Madrid-based NGO published a report in 2022 accusing China of establishing secret overseas police stations in European Union countries, according to Graphika.
Safeguard Defenders campaign director Laura Harth said the organisation has been tracking an online discrediting campaign by China since it published its report.
