Buying influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter | Deccan Herald

Flood global social media with fake accounts used to advance an authoritarian agenda. Make them look real and grow their numbers of followers. Seek out online critics of the state — and find out who they are and where they live. China's government has unleashed a global online campaign to burnish its image and undercut accusations of human rights abuses. Much of the effort takes place in the shadows, behind the guise of bot networks that generate automatic posts and hard-to-trace online personas. Now, a new set of documents reviewed by The New York Times reveals in stark detail how…