Ripples of Disinformation: Tracking Chinese-Language Disinformation After the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

By Wei-Ping Li, Ph.D.

As this analysis was written, it's been one month since Donald Trump was elected as the 47th president of the United States. In the past weeks, incorrect information about election results and Trump's statements on geopolitics, as well as disinformation against Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, has persisted on Chinese-language social media. Some fake information pieces may be traced to English posts on platforms like X; however, some were created particularly for Taiwanese, seeking to evoke the long-perpetuated skepticism about the US's policies toward Taiwan and China. (Note 1).

Between November 6, the day after the US presidential election, and December 6, one month later, the majority of Chinese-language false information circulated on social media or promoted by some Taiwanese media outlets fell into the following narrative categories:

1. Disinformation claiming that the 2020 or 2024 elections were rigged.

2. Disinformation that continued attacking the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

3. False claims asserting that changes in US domestic policies are underway thanks to Trump, although, in reality, Trump won't be sworn in as the US president until January 6, 2025.

4. Claims that falsely described the changes in geopolitics after Trump's election victory. 

5. Disinformation on changes in relationships between Taiwan, the US, and China. 

These Chinese false information pieces largely resonated with or were directly translated from social media posts shared by English accounts on X. Among the prominent themes in the posts translated from English accounts were attacks on the integrity of the 2020 and 2024 voting processes, as well as false claims that US domestic issues such as immigration and gender policy have changed since Trump was elected president.

🔎 Disinformation that the president-elect and businesses have taken steps to abandon Taiwan

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the disinformation and conspiracy theories promoted by left-leaning X accounts after the election were rarely translated into Chinese and were not extensively shared among Chinese-language users. For example, the claim that "20 million Democratic votes" mysteriously disappeared and the conspiracy theory that Starlink, a company owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk, was compromised to influence the election outcomes did not go viral among Chinese accounts (Note 2). It would be interesting to look into why left-wing conspiracy theories and disinformation were less frequently translated into Chinese and disseminated by Chinese-language social media users. 

On the other hand, as we mentioned earlier, some false claims spread more widely among Chinese-language social media users than in other languages. We have identified five of these claims that appear to target Chinese-speaking audiences, particularly Taiwanese. These assertions mainly concerned the relationships among Taiwan, China, and the US. Among the five claims, two conveyed the message that Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance declared the US has no right to intervene in the affairs between China and Taiwan, an argument that the Chinese government often emphasizes. Other claims further attempted to inflame the concerns by asserting that American corporations have moved their investments from Taiwan to other nations due to worries about an imminent conflict between China and Taiwan. 

Screenshot of a video with its caption falsely showed that US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance declared the US has no right to intervene in the affairs between China and Taiwan

One piece disseminated on Facebook and LINE asserted that companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Boeing, Tesla, Starbucks, Estee Lauder, and even the fast-food restaurant chain KFC have moved their business out of Taiwan. This disinformation piece was circulated at a sensitive time. Several days before the piece went viral, Reuters revealed that Elon Musk requested Taiwanese suppliers of his satellite company, SpaceX, to relocate their manufacturing factories from Taiwan because of geopolitical risks. At the same time, YouTube channels affiliated with Chinese media also promoted the story that "Musk asked 46 Taiwanese factories to move out of Taiwan," with the title claiming that "Musk has made the first move to abandon Taiwan" or "Trump's first step to 'hollowing out' Taiwan." Assertions like this try to elicit the looming worries among the Taiwanese that the US will eventually let China take over Taiwan. However, the claims that multiple American companies are leaving Taiwan were unfounded. Taiwan FactCheck Center verified that these companies either had no such plan or the business transition had already happened.

Screenshots of Facebook and LINE posts falsely asserted that companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Boeing, Tesla, Starbucks, Estee Lauder, and even the fast-food restaurant chain KFC have moved their business out of Taiwan. 

Contrary to the false pieces propagating the idea that the US has turned its back on Taiwan, one piece claimed that Trump called Chinese leader Xi Jinping and requested Xi refrain from using force to strike Taiwan. However, this piece was also a false claim. The X account that posted this claim has a history of inventing fictional stories to parody current events. The statement about Trump and Xi's conversation was also intended to be a fake story but was taken seriously and spread by those unfamiliar with the author's writing style.  

🔎 Disinformation about the changes after Trump was elected as the next US president

One of the most seen narratives during the month after the election was that changes immediately happened after Trump was elected as the next US president. Some of the claims also misrepresented the policies that Trump highlighted earlier on his reform agenda. 

Although Trump will not take the position as the US president until 2025 and is still considering candidates for his cabinet, several Chinese disinformation claims incorrectly named the nominees or stated that Trump and his cabinet nominee had issued executive orders. For instance, one post circulated on X said Trump had nominated Tucker Carlson, the former Fox talk show host, as White House Press Secretary. The post did not specify the news source. However, according to the Taiwanese fact-checking organization MyGoPen, a news agency based in Azerbaijan reported identical news.

Screenshot of a fake Trump’s statement showed that Trump had nominated Tucker Carlson, the former Fox talk show host, as White House Press Secretary.

Another false claim stated that Trump and his nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., had issued an executive order to abolish certain federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and repealed the regulations on vaccines. The claim further said that these reforms would end the control of big pharmaceutical companies and "bring justice back!" 

Some of the inaccurate claims said Trump's victory had brought new developments to ongoing global events, such as that the Houthis, the Islamist militant group based in Yemen, had announced the termination of its activities in the Red Sea; the Russian President Vladimir Putin declared to end the Ukrainian War; Russia went back to the US dollar to conduct trade of Russia-produced oil, etc. Of course, these claims did not happen in reality and actually sounded more like wishful thinking. Some of the false claims could be traced back to posts in other languages, such as the claim about Houthis' stopping activities in the Red Sea. However, some claims seem to spread primarily in the Chinese language.

Screenshot of a Facebook post falsely claimed that Trump's victory had brought new developments to ongoing global events, such as that the Houthis, the Islamist militant group based in Yemen, had announced the termination of its activities in the Red Sea; the Russian President Vladimir Putin declared to end the Ukrainian War; Russia went back to the US dollar to conduct trade of Russia-produced oil, etc. 

Some of the claims could also be traced back to the English posts that were originally intended to be parody. Among the incorrect pieces, a Taiwanese talk show referenced an X post shared by an English account, suggesting that Trump was frightened by Biden's decision to arm Ukraine with long-range missiles and Russia's reaction of lowering the threshold for launching nuclear weapons. The Taiwanese talk show host further stated that Trump thus asked for a talk with Putin, worrying it would trigger the Third World War. Nevertheless, the English account that the Taiwanese show quoted was not a genuine Trump account but a parody one. The post was also intended to be satire instead of a sharing of facts. Unfortunately, this was not the only case in which posts originally made for satirical purposes were taken as facts and amplified by Taiwanese influencers or media outlets. 

A Taiwanese talk show quoted an X post created by a Trump parody account, suggesting that Trump was frightened by Russia's reaction of lowering the threshold for launching nuclear weapons and asked for a talk with Putin.

🔎 Continuous attacks against Harris 

In our previous overview of the disinformation spread during the election campaign, we noted that many false pieces maliciously attacked Harris. The disinformation assault continued even after the election was over. Instead of fabricating events smearing Harris' characters, the disinformation that emerged after the election focused on Harris' "furious reaction" to the loss of the election, or Democratic elites such as Obama and Biden blamed the defeat on Harris being "dumb." The prior claims used video footage of unrelated events and added incorrect Chinese subtitles. Some internet users also noted that the video of Obama and Biden's discussion was manipulated by AI, according to the Asia Fact Check Lab. Nonetheless, many Chinese social media users still share the AI video without being aware that the video could be AI-generated or adding any alert. 

🔎 Conclusion

Overall, the false information pieces in the Chinese language have shown three trends: First, the pieces continued the pre-election tendencies, such as the attacks on the integrity of the election, including the 2020 one, and the defaming of Harris. Secondly, the pieces also indicated wishful thinking about the changes people expected or would like to see. Last but not least, malicious actors took advantage of the election results to fabricate events that stoked concerns about Taiwan-US-China relations, just as we have often witnessed in other major global events. 

Note 1: For the trends of Chinese disinformation spread during the 2024 US presidential election campaign and on election day, please check our report "An Overview of Chinese False Information in the 2024 US Presidential Election."

Note 2: Both claims that "20 million Democratic votes mysteriously disappeared" and that "Starlink was hacked to interfere with the election results" were false. There was no evidence to support the claim that votes disappeared. Moreover, voting machines in the US presidential election were not connected to the internet. It was impossible to manipulate the vote tabulation through any internet providers.    

Wei-Ping Li is a research fellow at the Taiwan FactCheck Center.