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Simultaneously, China has increasingly been accused of launching information operations using bot activity, puppet accounts, and other inauthentic activity to amplify its messaging. This paper provides a comprehensive network analysis characterization of the hashtag influence campaign China promoted against the US-hosted Summit on Democracy in December 2021, in addition to methods to identify different types of actors within this type of influence campaign. China uses layers of state-sponsored accounts, bots, and non-bot accounts to promote its messaging. Lastly, we describe how China uses localized campaigns under a more extensive umbrella campaign for information diffusion toward targeted audiences.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s10588-023-09380-9","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,1]],"date-time":"2023-07-01T07:02:09Z","timestamp":1688194929000},"page":"127-147","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["#WhatIsDemocracy: finding key actors in a Chinese influence campaign"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"30","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1439-996X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Charity S.","family":"Jacobs","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Kathleen M.","family":"Carley","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"9380_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"44","DOI":"10.1016\/j.osnem.2017.04.001","volume":"1","author":"V Arnaboldi","year":"2017","unstructured":"Arnaboldi V, Conti M, Passarella A, Dunbar R (2017) Online social networks and information diffusion: the role of ego networks. 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