By Brenda Goh
SHANGHAI, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Wang Ying has for the last fouryears identified herself as a diehard fan of Chinese boy bandstar Lay Zhang. Recently, the 17-year-old also starteddescribing herself as a patriot who supports China's stance onHong Kong.
The high school student from Shanghai is among the Chinesecitizens who in recent weeks have flocked to Western socialmedia platforms such as Instagram and Twitter to criticisedemonstrators in the former British colony.
She is part of a growing offensive emerging from China inrecent days aimed at promoting Beijing's narrative about what ishappening in Hong Kong to an overseas audience. State mediaoutlets, Chinese celebrities and regular internet users have allbanded together behind the effort.
While little news or video footage of the Hong Kong protestsmade its way into mainland China in the early weeks, the subjectnow dominates the news and most-read topic lists on China'sTwitter-like Weibo, with calls for Chinese citizens to takeaction to "protect Hong Kong".
China's government-owned media outlets have flooded Internetplatforms both inside and outside the country with stories andimages portraying the Hong Kong protests as the work of"terrorists" manipulated by Western powers and "radical forces".
They have paid to promote their coverage of Hong Kong onsites including Twitter and Facebook, which are banned on themainland. The companies said Tuesday that the Chinese governmenthas also mounted a propaganda campaign using fake accounts,thousands of which were taken down in recent days.
The efforts have unleashed an unusual dynamic in whichmainland citizens who are normally subject to strict controls ontheir online behaviour have been using virtual private networksto bypass the "Great Firewall" and spread anti-protest messagesinternationally, as well as on Chinese social media sites.
"It's only really the hypernationalists that are given freerein, their content isn't censored," said Fergus Ryan, ananalyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) whostudies Chinese social media.
"They're allowed to conduct campaigns, they're able toorganise online ... so that happens in China within the GreatFirewall, and then we see also it spill out into the widerInternet," he said.
But analysts say it's unclear who Beijing is targeting withthe campaign, or what the impact has been.
Lee Foster, an intelligence analyst at U.S. cybersecurityfirm FireEye, said the fake account campaigns on Twitter andFacebook were "relatively unsophisticated".
"(It's) not too dissimilar we've seen from Russia about 4-5years ago in terms of very simplistic personas and the use ofidentical messaging across accounts," he said.
King-wa Fu, an associate professor at the University of HongKong's Journalism and Media Centre, said he suspected the impactwithin Hong Kong was minimal.
"The majority of Hong Kong consume local media content," hesaid.
'FAN GIRLS' AND CELEBRITIES
The Hong Kong demonstrations began almost three months agoas a protest against a new extradition law and have sincesnowballed into a broader movement to defend the city-state'scivil liberties in the face of what is perceived to betightening mainland control.
Wang said she and her group of online peers, also known as'fan girls' or 'fanquan girls', began to campaign against theprotests after her idol Zhang, a member of South Korean boy bandExo, joined other Chinese celebrities last week to say that hebacked the Hong Kong police and Beijing's territorialsovereignty.
"Since our big brother loves our country so much, we fanshave to support him," she told Reuters. "So I went on Instagramto post messages such as 'Hong Kong is part of China,' 'Rejectviolence,' and 'Hong Kong police are the best!'"
They were joined by other internet denizens such as those on'Di Bar,' a discussion forum that is part of search engine giantBaidu's platform, where calls went out to the group's31.3 million members asking them to flood overseas social mediaplatforms with similar slogans and posts.
The internet movements were endorsed by Chinese statebroadcaster CCTV on Sunday on its nightly news programme, one ofChina's most-watched shows.
"These days, from fanquan girls to Di Bar, netizens tooverseas students, all the forces which love Hong Kong and Chinahave united to support and safeguard the city,' said newscasterGang Qiang.
State television's English-language channel CGTN, theofficial Xinhua news agency and the Communist Party's People'sDaily have all taken to Twitter and Facebook with gusto,denouncing the protesters and putting out Beijing's voice.
"What must be hidden and has to flee is not good, but evil,"CGTN said in a tweet on Wednesday that was accompanied by avideo of masked protesters with captions saying they wanted tohide their identities to avoid retribution.
Xinhua and CGTN paid to promote their Hong Kong coverage,according to Twitter's Ads Transparency Center. Neither outletresponded to requests for comment.
Twitter told Reuters on Monday it would no longer acceptadvertising from state-controlled news media.
China denounced the moves by Twitter and Facebook onTuesday, saying it had a right to put out its own views.
China's foreign ministry on Tuesday also sent a letteraccompanied by a 42-page document to foreign media outletsincluding Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journaloutlining Beijing's stance on the events in Hong Kong.
The documents included a timeline of how the protests began,saying that Hong Kong's opposition and some "radical forces" hadused the pretext of peaceful demonstration to engage in violentprotests, as well as articles which it said pointed to linksbetween "foreign forces" and protesters.(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by ShanghaiNewsroom, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Jack Stubbs in London;editing by Darren Schuettler)