China mines social media sites including Twitter and Facebook to equip its military and government agencies with data on Western targets, bidding documents reveal
- China is mining social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, to harvest data on foreign targets to be used by its military, police and other agencies
- Bidding documents and contracts reviewed by the Washington Post revealed costly purchases of sophisticated data surveillance systems
- The new software will allow the Chinese state to ‘better understand the underground network of anti-China personnel’Â
- The nation’s leaders are also forming a network of warning systems that will sound real-time alarms for trends that undermine the state’s interestsÂ
- Analyzing domestic public opinion online is a large pillar of President Xi Jinping’s initiative to modernize the country’s ‘propaganda apparatus and maintain control over the Internet’
