Chrystia Freeland’sย Liberal leadership campaign has been targeted by “co-ordinated and malicious activity”ย traced back to a WeChat account accused of having ties to the Chinese government,ย according to the task force set up to monitor foreign election interference.
According to the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE), which is made up of senior intelligence and security officials, the activity was traced toย WeChat’sย “most popular news account โ an anonymous blog that has been previously linked by experts at theย China Digital Timesย to the People’s Republic of China.”
WeChat is a Chinese app that is part of daily life in the country, from news to communication to banking.
In a statement, SITE wrote thatย over 30 WeChat news accounts tookย part in the campaign between Jan. 29 and Feb. 3.
“The campaign received very high levels of engagement and views, with WeChat news articles disparaging Ms. Freeland netting over 140,000 interactions,” it said.
The task force estimates that two to threeย million WeChat users saw the campaign globally.ย
SITE briefed Freeland and the Liberal Party of Canada on Friday.
The task force was initially set up to monitor federal elections and has since also taken on byelections and the Liberal leadership race.
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