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Published with this article ProPublicanonprofit investigative newsroom.

BEIJING — In the Chinese-propaganda village of Potemkin, the Winter Olympics emerged as a pure success, a celebration of sport and political cohesion that covered up the country’s flaws and abuses—which were covered up by critics.

The hills are snowy in Beijing 2022, not the usual brown at this time of year. A Uyghur skier symbol of the national union, tennis player Peng Shuai is just one curious audience. Athletes and foreign journalists praise polite volunteers and marvel at bullet trains and robots that boil meatballs and stir drinks.

While China’s control over what its domestic audiences and readers consume is well established, the country has spread its own version of the Games beyond its borders with an arsenal of digital tools that have arguably given China’s narrative more access and refinement than ever before.

With bots, fake accounts, real influencers and through other means, China has been able to selectively regulate how things unfold, even outside the country, by promoting everything that supports the official, feel-good story about the Winter Olympics and tries to suffocate everything that isn’t.

“For the Chinese Communist Party, the Winter Olympics are inseparable from the broader political goal of building the country’s national image,” said David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project, a watchdog organization. Referring to the country’s leader, he added: “This is what Xi Jinping calls ‘telling China’s story well’.”

On Twitter, which was banned in China, diplomats as well as Chinese state media outlets and journalists sought to bolster the image of the Games by praising the venues and adoring the Olympic mascot.

China has also tried to influence online discussions in more secret ways. The New York Times and ProPublica, for example, identified a network of more than 3,000 unoriginal-looking Twitter accounts that appear to coordinate to promote the Olympics by sharing state media posts with the same comments. Such accounts had been created recently with very few followers, mostly reposting and had nothing of their own, and seemed to operate solely to amplify official Chinese voices.

Some of his efforts have centered on an account called Spicy Panda, which publishes cartoons and videos. olympic boycott. In one cartoon, Spicy Panda accused the United States of using “the deceptive propaganda weapon to tarnish the Olympics.”

The tweet was reposted 281 times by accounts, all of which appeared to be fake, but received little engagement; this is a strong indication that the network is being mobilized to promote the message. Promotional outbursts aside, Spicy Panda’s posts about the Olympics garnered hardly any attention.

An analysis of Spicy Panda’s supporters revealed 861 accounts—90 percent of them created after December 1. The first wave of coordinated posts by accounts strengthened Beijing’s stance that Hong Kong’s legislative council elections were legitimate, but critics called the vote fraudulent. . Then the accounts turned their attention to the Olympics. (On Thursday, all but one of the accounts were suspended, shortly after The Times and ProPublica asked Twitter about them.)

Spicy Panda appears to have a connection with iChongqing, a state media-affiliated multimedia platform located in Chongqing, a city in central China. Accounts that shared Spicy Panda’s posts often did the same with tweets from iChongqing’s account. IChongqing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other bot-like accounts promoted hashtags aimed at stifling criticism of China, a hallmark of previous campaigns.

They promoted the content under hashtags like #Beijing2022 and #TogetherForASharedFuture, this year’s official Olympic slogan. Some accounts tweeted repeatedly with the same phrases, such as “China hosting #Beijing2022 as planned has boosted the world’s confidence in beating the pandemic.”

Twitter said in an emailed statement that it has suspended hundreds of accounts identified by The Times and ProPublica for violating its platform manipulation and spam policies. He said he continues to investigate the accounts’ links to government-sponsored information operations.

Even Bing Dwen Dwen, the Games’ official mascot, the cute ice-suited panda, was the subject of an organized campaign on Twitter, according to Albert Zhang, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Center for Cyber ​​Policy.

Thousands of new or previously inactive accounts helped the mascot go viralHe said Chinese state media presented it as proof of the mascot’s popularity and, by extension, the Games’ popularity.

“If you want to publish a lot of content on a topic like the Beijing Olympics, this is an easy way to do it,” Mr. Zhang said. He added that the campaign currently underway, like other campaigns supported by the Chinese state, is to challenge Beijing’s narrative on: Covid-19 and Pressure on Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The information space in China is no different from elaborate measures that create a “closed loop” that keeps athletes, journalists and other participants strictly separate from the public.

In the “closed loop” of official propaganda, the state carefully selects almost everything ordinary Chinese see or read. The effect was an Olympiad without scandal, criticism, or bad news.

When the United States men’s hockey team played extreme matching chinese team, the game was not shown on the main state television sports channel CCTV 5, while the 8-0 defeat was only in the news. A state media slideshow devoted to the men’s figure skating competition remarkably skipped gold medalist Nathan Chen of the United States.

In the Chinese footage of the Games, the mountains, in which many competitions are held, are deftly framed to exclude the dry, brown slopes in the background, until the 8th day when a snowstorm covers them with a white ice.

One of these Games’ biggest political stories has also emerged outside of China’s internet firewall: Peng Shuaiprofessional tennis player and three-time Olympian who sparked a rage when she accused a top Communist Party leader of sexually assaulting her.

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, met for dinner, as promised. global outcry threatened to overshadow the Games on its fate. Ms. Peng took part in curling and figure skating, among other activities. None of this was shown in China, and all references to the accusations were deleted, including later attributed and misunderstood statements.

“It is absolutely critical to understand that this is not just another narrative,” said Mr. Bandurski of the China Media Project of the Olympics. “This is a narrative that implies widespread censorship and the manipulation of public opinion that is actually politics.”

Jack Stubbs, vice president of intelligence at Graphika, a social media monitoring company, said his firm had observed another Chinese propaganda network using foreign social media platforms.

The network spread videos emphasizing the eco-friendliness of the Olympics and muttering about strengthening Sino-Russian ties, culminating in President Vladimir V. Putin’s participation in the opening ceremony.

China has defended the use of Twitter and Facebook, platforms it has banned at home. Hua Chunying, spokesperson for the foreign ministry, said: last year that such sites are an “extra conduit” to combat negative portrayals in the West.

Vippi Media, an American company based in New Jersey, has signed a $300,000 contract with the Chinese Consulate General in New York to help promote the games. filing With the Department of Justice under the Foreign Representatives Registration Act.

Under the contract, first reported The company’s founder, Vipinder Jaswal, by the Open Secrets research group, said in a phone interview that the company promotes the Games by hiring “social media stars” to post on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

“They were very clear and very clear that it was just about the Olympics and the Olympics, not politics,” he said.

When the Games began, the drama of the sports drew attention. The protests against China’s human rights record did not materialize as some activists had hoped. On the contrary, many athletes showered him with praise.

Jenise Spiteri says, “When you really meet and talk to the people here” American snowboarder competing for Maltasaid state media interview“Everyone has a very good heart.”

Spicy Panda tweeted a state media report about another American competitor, freestyle skier Aaron Blunck. In statements published by the official China Daily, Mr. Blunck praised China’s Covid protocols.

“#AaronBlunck has revealed the real China, which is totally different from what some American media are saying!” Read Spicy Panda’s post.

Steven Lee Myers reported from Beijing, Paul Mozur from Seoul, and Jeff Kao from New York. Claire Fu and John Liu contributed to research.