BY SRH
A Chinese bot network was found by the X safety team on August 28. Two hundred of the linked accounts the researchers removed discussed American data centers. Why X is reporting these accounts now is unknown since OpenAI spotted them in June and they were formed last year.
News coverage and reactions vary. Despite a researcher telling Business Insider the opposite, Axios headlined the item “China is secretly fueling America’s data center rage.”
After reading both headlines, the average reader may be confused. These events demonstrate how facts can be distorted, reused, or taken out of context to promote a point.
Can you explain what happened?The 200 banned accounts were accused of manipulating a legitimate debate regarding American AI and energy policy. Notified X.
Pictures the X team claimed to have removed
X’s timing of publishing these photos is odd, according to Clemson University media forensics professor Darren Linvill. He told Straight Arrow that OpenAI has already blogged about these entries in June, which date back to December 2025 and January 2026.
Post dates are not shown in the X safety announcement.
Linvill said each of these 200 identities “only posted a couple of times,” but X didn’t notice. “So, a handful of hundred posts are all that they’re accountable for.”
Approximately 671 million X accounts are among the billions deleted annually by social media corporations.”They deleted 200,000 accounts, but that doesn’t make it noteworthy or novel,” Linvill said. “This is a constant behavior on their part.”
The announcement did not mention that.
This was the first public revelation of a foreign influence effort takedown in a while. “However, they manage to make it seem really special, even though they’re actually continually removing accounts from China.”
In its June assessment, OpenAI rated the posts’ impact and threat level as low due to their limited reach and swift deletion.OpenAI reported one-platform activity without breakout. “We found that the majority of the social media posts did not receive any noticeable engagement.”
OpenAI says X erased posts before June.
OpenAI found that the accounts were created in late 2025. At the time, they had few followers and posts. X suspended them all without our consent.
What happened after X posted about these accounts?
Lawmakers repeated X’s announcement.
Republican, Zionist Ted Cruz of Texas called the bot farm “a massive story” with accounts “pushing propaganda online” on YouTube.
He claimed that data centers were bad and that the Chinese Communist Party preferred that perception. “They would have you despise data centers and work to have them closed down,” he stated.
Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Penn., reshaped the X video, saying, “The Chinese Communist Party knows that whoever dominates AI will shape the future.”
Trump commented on Truth Social that “Communities throughout the U.S.A. should want Data Centers unless they want to end up backward and poor.” “This anti-Data Center movement delights China. ‘No proof’
Then is this valid? Do Chinese bots post on US social media? “China conducts strong influence operations,” Linvill informed Straight Arrow. According to him, the nation in issue produces robots that are less difficult to conceal.He stated that safety staff remove bots from the system within minutes due to their enormous number.
Chinese bot operations “have an active interest in influencing our perceptions of many things, especially what we think about China,” he said. He noted that he had not seen any indication since January that they wanted to restrict US AI data center development. It was barely noticeable in January.
According to him, the fake posts may be mimicking American online opinion, which sometimes includes a growing dislike for data centers.
Foreign bots typically choose a topic to join the chat. They’re discussing AI
The speaker explained that “real Americans are talking about AI” because “they’re talking about AI.””These 200 accounts show that a Chinese government employee made AI-related posts in January,” Linvill added. Officials were identified. Its motivation is unknown.
Perhaps the accounts are testing different approaches to see what works. Internet “slop” makers release more as demand rises. Since generating movies about popular topics is profitable, fake videos of real-life situations are frequent.
404 Media discovered a Russian user exploiting OpenAI’s video generator to make fake Los Angeles fire clips this summer. After the National Guard’s deployment to the nation’s capital, bot accounts spread fake footage of Nepal’s terrible floods last month.
Who profits from fake Nepal flood movies, and why are they viral?
Participating in popular topics makes bot accounts seem more real. Linvill believes foreign state media is more interested in creating information that encourages involvement than in influencing data center opinions.
An account or post from China doesn’t mean it’s spreading misinformation. After 23-year-old American content producer Sydney Towle died of cancer on August 5, Indicator found 152 accounts that stole scripts and reproduced films from her.
The journal noted that “a person or people who speak Chinese and/or are based in China” created or maintained certain accounts.
The claim that the 200 accounts indicate a targeted attack on American data centers. Chinese bots “try to suppress narratives, not promote them,”Their narrative promotion skills are lacking.”
There are a lot of bots online should be the main lessons from the incident. However, bot distribution is “uneven. People usually view and engage with real accounts.
To stay safe, sane, and informed online, StevieRay advised staying aware and using critical thinking.
