纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国网络信息战新策略异见作家邓聿文之女遭网暴

Deng Yuwen, a prominent Chinese writer who now lives in exile in the suburbs of Philadelphia, has regularly criticized China and its authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping. China’s reaction of late has been severe, with crude and ominously personal attacks online.

生活在费城郊区的著名中国流亡作家邓聿文经常批评中国及其专制领导人习近平。中国近来的回应十分严厉，在网上对他进行了粗暴和恶意的攻击。

A covert propaganda network linked to the country’s security services has barraged not just Mr. Deng but also his teenage daughter with sexually suggestive and threatening posts on popular social media platforms, according to researchers at both Clemson University and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

据克莱姆森大学和拥有Facebook与Instagram的Meta公司的研究人员称，通过充满性暗示和威胁的帖子，一个与中国安全部门有关联的秘密宣传网络在流行的社交媒体平台不仅对邓聿文，而且还对他十几岁的女儿进行了猛烈攻击。

The content, posted by users with fake identities, has appeared in replies to Mr. Deng’s posts on X, the social platform, as well as the accounts of public schools in their community, where the daughter, who is 16, has been falsely portrayed as a drug user, an arsonist and a prostitute.

这些内容是由假冒身份的用户发布的，出现在邓聿文发在社交平台X的帖子下的回复中，也出现在对他所在社区的公立学校账号的评论中，邓聿文16岁的女儿在这些评论中被诬陷为吸毒者、纵火犯和妓女。

“I tried to delete these posts,” Mr. Deng said of the attacks online, speaking in Mandarin Chinese in an interview, “but I didn’t succeed, because today you try to delete and tomorrow they just switch to new accounts to leave attacking text and language.”

“没法屏蔽，”邓聿文在采访中用普通话谈到网上的攻击时说，“因为你今天屏蔽它，明天它就换一个马甲，又上来了。”

Vulgar comments targeting the girl have also shown up on community pages on Facebook and even sites like TripAdvisor; Patch, a community news platform; and Niche, a website that helps parents choose schools, according to the researchers.

据研究人员称，针对这名女孩的粗俗评论还出现在Facebook的社区页面上，甚至出现在TripAdvisor、社区新闻平台Patch和帮助家长选择学校的Niche等网站上。

The harassment fits a pattern of online intimidation that has raised alarms in Washington, as well as Canada and other countries where China’s attacks have become increasingly brazen. The campaign has included thousands of posts the researchers have linked to a network of social media accounts known as Spamouflage or Dragonbridge, an arm of the country’s vast propaganda apparatus.

这种骚扰符合一个已经引起华盛顿、加拿大和其他国家警觉的网络恐吓模式，中国在这些国家的攻击越来越明目张胆。这些攻击活动包含数千个帖子，研究人员将它们与被称为“水军伪装”(Spamouflage)或“龙桥”(Dragonbridge)的社交媒体账号网络连接起来，中国庞大的宣传机构是该网络的组织者。

China has long sought to discredit Chinese critics, but targeting a teenager in the United States is an escalation, said Darren Linvill, a founder of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson, whose researchers documented the campaign against Mr. Deng. Federal law prohibits severe online harassment or threats, but that appears to be no deterrent to China’s efforts.

克莱姆森大学媒体取证中心的创始人达伦·林维尔表示，中国长期以来一直试图诋毁批评人士，但把一名在美国的青少年当做目标是一种升级，该中心的研究人员记录了针对邓聿文的攻击。联邦法律禁止严重的网络骚扰或威胁，但这似乎无法阻止中国的行动。

“There’s no question that this crosses a line that they hadn’t previously crossed,” Mr. Linvill said. “I think that suggests that the lines are becoming meaningless.”

“毫无疑问，这越过了他们以前未曾越过的界线，”林维尔说。“我认为，这表明界线已经变得毫无意义。”

China’s propaganda apparatus has also stepped up attacks against the United States more broadly, including efforts to discredit President Biden ahead of the presidential election in November.

中国宣传机构还在更大范围内加强了对美国的攻击，包括在11月总统大选前竭力诋毁拜登总统。

“They’re exporting their repression efforts and human rights abuses — targeting, threatening and harassing those who dare question their legitimacy or authority even outside China, including right here in the U.S.,” Christopher A. Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told the American Bar Association in Washington in April.

联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷4月在华盛顿举行的美国律师协会会议上表示：“甚至在中国境外，包括在美国，他们正在输出镇压和侵犯人权的行为——针对、威胁和骚扰那些敢于质疑其合法性或权威的人。”

Mr. Wray said China was exerting “intense, almost Mafia-style pressure” to try to silence dissidents now living legally in the United States, including activities online and off, like posting fliers near their homes.

他说，中国正在施加“巨大的、近乎黑手党式的压力”，试图让目前合法居住在美国的异见者保持沉默，包括在网上和现实生活中开展行动，比如在他们的住所附近张贴传单。

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said in a statement that he was not aware of the Deng case and had no comment. He added that the government’s State Council issued regulations in China last year to protect the safety of teenagers online.

中国驻华盛顿大使馆发言人刘鹏宇在声明中说，他不知道邓聿文的事情，也不发表评论。他还说，政府国务院去年在中国发布了保护青少年上网安全的规定。

In a statement, Meta said it had taken down Facebook accounts targeting the Dengs as part of its monitoring of Spamouflage’s activities. The statement said the activity hadn’t gained much traction on Facebook. Patch and Niche said they, too, had removed the accounts for violating their standards for use. X and TripAdvisor did not respond to requests for comment.

Meta在一份声明中表示，作为监控“水军伪装”活动的一部分，它已经删除了针对邓聿文一家的Facebook账号。声明说，这一活动在Facebook上没有引起太大关注。Patch和Niche表示，他们也因违反了使用标准而删除了这些账号。X和TripAdvisor没有回应置评请求。

Not all the posts targeting the Dengs were removed, according to Mr. Linvill’s team at Clemson. New posts also continue to appear, and traces even of posts that are removed can linger online for years. Spamouflage’s attacks still appear in searches for Mr. Deng and his daughter on Google, for example.

林维尔在克莱姆森大学的团队称，并非所有针对邓聿文一家的帖子都被删除了。新的帖子还会不断出现，甚至被删除的帖子的痕迹也会在网上存留数年。例如，在谷歌上搜索邓聿文和他的女儿时，“水军伪装”的攻击仍然会出现。

The attacks from China have been a challenge for government and law enforcement officials in the United States. Last year, the Justice Department indicted 34 officers working for China’s Ministry of State Security on charges of harassing residents of the United States like Mr. Deng, but the officers live — and presumably continue to work — in China, outside the reach of American law enforcement.

来自中国的攻击一直是美国政府和执法官员面临的挑战。去年，美国司法部起诉了34名为中国国家安全部工作的官员，指控他们骚扰像邓聿文这样的美国居民，但这些官员生活在中国，可能还会继续在中国工作，不在美国执法部门的管辖范围之内。

Some have called for a more aggressive response, including Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Communist Party of China.

一些人呼吁采取更积极的应对措施，其中包括密歇根州众议员、众议院中共问题特设委员会主席、共和党人约翰·穆勒纳尔。

“We need to educate and empower law enforcement officers and the American people to understand the C.C.P.’s tactics,” he said in a statement, referring to the party, “and protect the people seeking safe haven in our country.”

“我们需要教育执法人员和美国人民，为他们赋权，让他们了解中共的策略，”他在声明中说。“还要保护那些在我们国家寻求安全庇护的人。”

The Spamouflage network was first identified in 2019 during mass anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong. It creates inauthentic accounts on social media or tech platforms to bombard actual users with spamlike content — hence the name researchers have given the network. While the content often fails to go viral, the swarming nature of the attacks can be a nuisance, or worse, for those targeted.

“水军伪装”网络于2019年在香港大规模反北京抗议活动期间首次被发现。它在社交媒体或技术平台上创建不真实的账号，用垃圾邮件式的内容轰炸真实用户——因此研究人员给这个网络起了这个名字。虽然这些内容通常不会发展为病毒式传播，但对被攻击的人来说，蜂拥而至的攻击可能会带来困扰，甚至更糟。

The network, which Meta last year linked to law enforcement agencies in China, once focused most of its attention domestically to discredit and intimidate critics of the Communist Party, like the protesters in Hong Kong.

去年，Meta将该网络与中国的执法机构联系了起来，后者曾经把大部分注意力集中在国内，诋毁和恐吓共产党的批评者，比如香港的抗议者。

It has become increasingly active abroad, seeking to influence political debates and elections in Taiwan, Canada and, since at least the 2022 midterm election, the United States. An American Olympic figure skater and her father, a former political refugee from China, were targeted by what the Justice Department described as a spying operation ordered by Beijing. Chinese journalists working abroad, especially women, have likewise been depicted in fake escort ads and faced bomb and rape threats.

它在海外也变得越来越活跃，试图影响台湾、加拿大的政治辩论和选举。至少从2022年的中期选举开始，它还试图影响美国的政治辩论和选举。一名美国奥运花样滑冰选手和她的父亲成了美国司法部所称的北京下令进行的间谍活动的目标。这位父亲曾是来自中国的政治难民。在海外工作的华裔记者，尤其是女性记者，也同样出现在虚假的卖淫广告中，并面临炸弹和强奸威胁。

The Justice Department indictment of the officers at the Ministry of State Security did not link them explicitly to the Spamouflage network, but the activities described mirror its work closely and appear “extremely likely” to be the same operation, according to a recent report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research group. The institute also warned that the network was focusing increasingly on the American presidential election.

司法部对那些国家安全部官员的起诉书没有明确将他们与“水军伪装”网络联系起来，但根据非营利研究机构战略对话研究所最近的报告，这些活动与“水军伪装”的工作密切相关，似乎“极有可能”是同一项行动。该研究所还警告称，该网络越来越关注美国总统大选。

In Mr. Deng’s case, as with others, the intent seems to be to silence criticism. Mr. Deng, who was born in Xinyu, in southeastern China, once served as an assistant editor at Study Times, a weekly journal of the Central Party School of the Communist Party that trains rising officials.

在邓聿文的案例中，和其他人一样，其目的似乎是压制批评。邓先生出生于中国东南部的新余，曾担任《学习时报》的助理编辑，《学习时报》是专门培养新晋官员的中共中央党校的一份周刊。

His commentaries sometimes pushed the envelope of the party line. He was dismissed in 2013 after he wrote an opinion essay for The Financial Times — which appeared in its Chinese and English editions — calling for China to abandon its strategic ties with North Korea’s erratic authoritarian leader, Kim Jong-un. He eventually left the country.

他的评论有时会突破党的底线。2013年，他为《金融时报》撰写了一篇评论文章，呼吁中国放弃与朝鲜反复无常的威权领导人金正恩的战略关系，之后他被免职。他最终离开了中国。

Mr. Deng, who is 56, has lived in the United States with his wife and two children since 2018. He continues to publish essays in a variety of news outlets and books on Chinese politics and foreign policy. The latest book was “The Last Totalitarian,” published in Chinese in April by Bouden House in New York. In it, he argues that the Communist Party has lost the faith of the people and needs to reform.

现年56岁的邓聿文自2018年以来一直与妻子和两个孩子住在美国。他继续在各种新闻媒体上发表关于中国政治和外交政策的文章，并出版相关书籍。他的最新著作是《最后的极权》(The Last Totalitarian)，今年4月由纽约博登书屋出版。在这本书中，他认为共产党已经失去了人民的信任，需要改革。

In the interview, Mr. Deng said he was used to criticism from China’s officialdom, but the personal attacks began after he published an article in February in which he compared Mr. Xi’s cadre of top officials to the Gang of Four under Mao Zedong.

邓聿文在采访中说，他已经习惯了来自中国官方的批评，但在他今年2月发表了一篇文章后，人身攻击开始了。他在文中把习近平的高官团队比作毛泽东领导下的“四人帮”。

The first post that Clemson’s researchers spotted appeared that month on X, where Mr. Deng’s account has more than 100,000 followers. It mentioned a middle school in the family’s town and his daughter. The harassment spread to other accounts on X and then to numerous platforms, including Facebook, Medium, Pinterest, DeviantArt and Pixiv, a Japanese site for artists.

克莱姆森大学的研究人员发现的第一条帖子出现在当月的X上，邓聿文的账号在X上有10万多名关注者。帖子提到了他家所在城镇的一所中学和他的女儿。骚扰蔓延到X上的其他账户，然后又到了其它许多平台，包括Facebook、Medium、Pinterest、DeviantArt和日本艺术家网站Pixiv。

The posts denounced him as a traitor, a plagiarist and a tool of the United States. More than 5,700 posts to date on X alone have singled out his daughter, according to Clemson’s research.

这些帖子谴责他是叛徒、剽窃者和美国的工具。克莱姆森的研究显示，到目前为止，仅在X上就有超过5700条帖子提到他的女儿。

The users’ profiles often made them appear to be American, though with few or even no followers. Many posts featured stilted, ungrammatical English, a signature of Spamouflage campaigns.

这些用户的个人资料往往会让人觉得他们是美国人，但关注他们的人很少，甚至根本没有。许多帖子都使用蹩脚、不合语法的英语，这是“水军伪装”活动的一个标志。

They became increasingly lurid and threatening. Doctored images appeared on Facebook with the face of Mr. Deng’s daughter superimposed on scantily clad women, advertising sex for $300. At least one post called for her to be sexually assaulted, offering a bounty of $8,000.

它们变得越来越耸人听闻和具有威胁性。Facebook上出现了一些篡改过的图片，将邓聿文女儿的脸叠加在穿着暴露的女性身上，做成开价300美元的色情广告。至少有一个帖子呼吁对她进行性侵犯，并提供8000美元的赏金。

His daughter, who speaks English with a teenager’s fluency in Gen Z slang, was initially angry about the attacks, as well, Mr. Deng said, but at his encouragement, she has also tried to shrug them off. “I want to try my best not to get my family involved in my affairs,” he said.

他的女儿——一名英语流利、熟知Z世代俚语的青少年，最初也对这些攻击感到愤怒，但在他的鼓励下，她也试图对这件事置之不理。他说：“我尽量不让家人牵连到我的事。”

Meta, Google and other major tech platforms have long been aware of Spamouflage’s activities and have sought to blunt their reach. Last year, Meta announced that it had removed more than 7,700 fake accounts on Facebook linked to the network in one quarter alone.

Meta、谷歌和其他主要技术平台早就意识到“水军伪装”的活动，并试图削弱其影响力。去年，Meta宣布，仅在一个季度内，它就删除了Facebook上与该网络相关的7700多个虚假账号。

Mr. Linvill of Clemson said China’s tactics were likely to continue because the country had “yet to face any meaningful repercussions beyond accounts’ being taken down, and that is no cost at all from their perspective.”

克莱姆森大学的林维尔说，中国的策略可能会继续下去，因为中国“除了账号被关闭之外，还没有受到任何有意义的影响，从他们的角度来看，这根本不需要付出任何代价”。