There is quite a bit of talk about "Russian #trolls", "Russian #propaganda" etc. Israel is doing the same btw, but a little more subtle. And also #China has their own state bloggers, the so-called "50 cent army", named after the fact that they allegedly get paid 0.5 RMB for each comment. Usually that "50 cent army" is thought to be working inside China, but from time to time on the internet you may encounter a number of people suddenly and vehemently supporting the CCP view - and you may wonder why they do that.

The German TV program "Story im Ersten" got their hands on documents showing the requirements the Security Bureau of a smaller city in China's northeast has issued to "service providers" in China. To counteract quickly and affect public opinion efficiently, they demand a posting frequency of 1000 posts and more per second, support of more than five million IP addresses, at least 1000 accounts on news sites, a million forum accounts, at least 1000 accounts on each Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

Since the last three are blocked in China, it is pretty clear that these measures are also directed to the "outside". This is for the Security Bureau of a relatively small city in China. Imagine what the Security Bureau in cities like Shanghai may demand. This is the first time I've seen actual figures for China. The figures I saw for Russia once make Russian state bloggers seem like amateurs compared to this. The Chinese embassy was contacted and presented with these requirements. They didn't deny them, instead stating that "social media are of course a place for cultural exchange". If you like to watch it as video, the China part starts at about 36 minutes. Both the written article and the video are German only, sorry.