Are the Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines and the Chinese embassy in Manila behind pro-China trolls spreading misinformation about the Philippines and the South China / West Philippine Sea? We’ve linked 80+ accounts on FB and X to embassy activity, and we’ll show you how we did it.
Recap
In parts one and two of our investigation, we exposed the fake accounts of pro-China trolls by highlighting their poor tradecraft. Fake profiles were astroturfing the posts of the Chinese embassy in the Philippines and Ambassador Huang Xilian, as well as spreading misinformation and pro-China (and anti-Philippine) rhetoric. We’ve since dug deeper and found many more fake accounts – all of them linked to Ambassador Huang, the PRC embassy in Manila, or parroting their anti-Philippines propaganda.
(More) Evidence
Here’s some more examples of blatant artificial account activity on Ambassador Huang’s public Facebook page, both recently and over the last few months. Note the repeated comments, AI-like language and grammar, and shameless praise.
Let’s not forget X / twitter – some of the accounts we exposed months back are still active (with minor obfuscation – as seen in part two), and we’ve identified more using the same tradecraft. A few examples:
Identifying troll accounts, en masse
We’ve previously identified troll accounts, exposed them, and caused them to briefly change their tactics and slow down the stream of pro-China content. Now we aim to put as many of these artificial profiles into the spotlight as we can. We used multiple metrics to identify which accounts were being used by the embassy for this purpose – including activity on embassy/ambassador posts, links to Chinese state media, proximity to known trolls, and use of language. We’ve included account URLs in the tables below, for both Facebook and X. Go take a look for yourselves – we encourage you to make up your own mind on the purpose of these accounts. If you think they’re fake troll accounts like we do, report them to the platform – at allsourcechina.com we believe social media should be free of misinformation and nation state propaganda.
Identified X accounts
| Account Name | Handle | Reposting embassy content | Reposting state media content | Seen with known trolls | Pro-China narratives regarding SCS conflict |
| Sky | @Merlynsuaje | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| DonnaLyn | @Aileen138499631 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Freddie | @MallariAl88521 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pogi | @santi06ruben | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Queen | @anne011morales | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Love | @revillarose503 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mondie | @RMonzano20727 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Beauty | @Maryrose429207 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Antonio | @Bernie269097771 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rossie | @santos09milag | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Elizabeth Rose Ramos | @Elizabe6210664 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Jefferson Cruz | @Jeffers86842739 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Stingray Panopio | @PanopioStingray | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Trina Moreno | @TrinaMo54616265 | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Bobby Samuel Trenas | @BobbyTrenas | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Judy Canceran | @canceran_judy | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Philip Sales | @PhilipSales8 | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Destiny SANTOS | @Destiny94826417 | ✓ | ✓ |
Identified Facebook accounts
These Facebook accounts have been seen doing all of the following:
- Commenting on embassy and ambassador posts
- Repeating many comments on the same post
- Using the same AI-like language as previously exposed trolls
- Exclusively praising China and pro-PRC narratives
These are the poor techniques that led to our investigation in the first place – go look at any post from Ambassador Huang and you’ll see these names popping up again and again – drowning any natural discourse in artificial praise.
Why does it matter?
So now we’ve established that:
A) There are dozens of fake Filipino accounts posting pro-China rhetoric, against the common social media narrative
And B) They are all regularly and artificially boosting the engagement on the pages of both Ambassador Huang and the Chinese Embassy in Manila
We can come to an obvious conclusion – we think the PRC state is funding a troll farm in an attempt to influence public opinion of China in the Philippines.
Influential online figures exposing China’s illegal actions in the SCS have been attacked on social media by these trolls. Posts by people like Jay Tarriela and Ray Powell are being swarmed by these trolls in an attempt to mask the truth of these illegal actions. Misinformation is the only way China can fight the truth – by exposing these trolls and reporting their accounts we can fight back.
James- All Source China https://x.com/JpmCopaOSINT
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