China using influencers to whitewash human rights abuses, report finds

A screen showing images of China's president Xi Jinping in Kashgar, Xinjiang. A new report claims Beijing is using social media influencers from such troubled regions in sophisticated propaganda campaigns. Photograph: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

The Chinese Communist party is using social media influencers from troubled regions like Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia to whitewash human rights abuses through an increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaign, a report has claimed.

The report published on Thursday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), described the videos by “frontier influencers” as a growing part of Beijing’s “propaganda arsenal”.