China is intimidating women journalists and researchers online to silence and discredit them, report says

China has been intimidating women journalists and researchers online to silence them and discredit their critical coverage of China, according to think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The harassment “illustrates how online attacks can be used by authoritarian governments beyond borders to intimidate and silence journalists,” Nadine Hoffman, deputy director of the Washington-based International Women’s Media Foundation, wrote in an email to VOA According to June and November reports from ASPI, a network popularly dubbed Spamouflage is likely behind the harassment. But embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in June that “China condemns the harassment of female groups and opposes linking it to the Chinese government without evidence.” Twitter first attributed a “significant state-backed” operation to China in 2019 when the social media company identified over 900 accounts it said were linked to Beijing. According to VOA,the latest report from ASPI determined that graphic online depictions of sexual assault, as well as homophobia, racist imagery and life-threatening intimidation — like telling targets to kill themselves — “are a growing part of the Chinese Communist Party’s toolkit of digital transnational repression.” “People like you who betray the motherland, smear and slander at will, are really inferior to dogs,” one tweet cited in the report said.