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| Freeland was target of online attacks apparently from China |
It appears China does not like Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland, following the monitoring of several posts on WeChat seen by over 3 million people.
The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE) said an information operation directed at Freeland was traced to WeChat's "most popular news account", apparently an anonymous blog that experts have linked to the People's Republic of China.
SITE, which is made up of senior Canadian intelligence and security officials, said in a statement Friday that over 30 WeChat news accounts took part in the campaign from January 29 to February 3.
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| She is in the running to replace Trudeau |
The task force estimates between 2 million to 3 million users globally saw the posts, without elaborating on what the "derogatory" content was.
In reaction to the news, Freeland, who was formerly the finance and deputy minister in the Trudeau administration until December, was undeterred.
"I will not be intimidated by Chinese foreign interference," she wrote in a social media post. "Having spent years confronting authoritarian regimes, I know firsthand the importance of defending our freedoms."
Interestingly this development comes on the heels of the public inquiry into foreign election interference that recently wrapped up, calling misinformation and disinformation an "existential threat."
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| Hogue warned of "existential threat" in report |
"In my view it is no exaggeration to say that at this juncture, information manipulation (whether foreign or not) poses the single biggest risk to our democracy."
How will Beijing react? Either defiant denial or gaslighting?
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