Taipei is sounding the alarm on what it calls a sophisticated Chinese campaign to undermine its society through digital deception. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) has unveiled a damning report detailing how Beijing is weaponizing IT firms and marketing companies to flood the island with propaganda.
The report, released on Sunday, exposes a vast network of over 45,000 fake social media accounts and 2.314 million pieces of misleading content detected in 2025 alone. These operations are orchestrated under China’s ‘cognitive warfare’ doctrine, aimed at reshaping public opinion and sowing division.
According to the NSB, Chinese IT companies, guided by the Central Publicity Department and Ministry of Public Security, deploy massive databases and automated bots. Firms like Haixunshe, Himai, and Huya create sham news websites that start with clickbait to hook readers before pivoting to politically charged narratives targeting Taiwan’s resolve.
The goal is clear: erode public resistance, fracture internal unity, weaken alliances, and build pro-China sentiment. During Chinese military drills, cyberattacks spiked dramatically, with 2.08 million incidents on the first day surging to 2.09 million the next.
Taiwan is fighting back, ramping up collaborations with fact-checkers and social platforms to detect and dismantle these networks. ‘This is hybrid warfare at its most insidious,’ an NSB spokesperson stated, urging vigilance against invisible threats that strike at the mind.