China’s troll army: From teachers to riders, all fake

A teacher. A college student. And even a construction worker.

To the casual observer scrolling through Facebook, these profiles would look like ordinary Filipinos. A teacher posting about classroom experience, students interacting with other students, and an ordinary worker sharing glimpses of his daily grind. They had names, faces, and opinions.

The problem: they’re not real people but carefully curated masks, created by a covert unit of “dedicated keyboard warriors” paid to infiltrate the daily conversations of Filipinos, as part of sophisticated and foreign-funded operations.

Internal onboarding documents from InfinitUs Marketing Solutions, a marketing firm allegedly hired by the Chinese embassy, show what could be information operations designed to “change the overall negative perception of Filipinos about the Chinese and China,” according to its written guidelines.

This unfolds against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the West Philippine Sea, where China continues to assert its claims through both physical aggression and propaganda. But the battleground has shifted from the open seas to the digital sphere. 

While InfinitUs is not the first case study of commercialized disinformation that’s been made public, this signals a critical evolution in influence operations. 

For one, InfinitUs’ alleged client is the Chinese embassy in the Philippines, which would implicate the People’s Republic of China in domestic interference. And while this is not the first time that Beijing has been linked to coordinated information operations in the Philippines, the leaked documents provide a rare and granular look at the “outsourcing” of these operations to local firms, weaponizing Filipinos against their own democracy.

Rappler reached out multiple times to the Chinese embassy in the Philippines, through emails and calls, to get their response to the allegations. This story will be updated when we get a response.

InfinitUs: Marketing or trolls-for-hire?

InfinitUs first came into the spotlight in April 2025 when then-senator Francis Tolentino accused the Chinese embassy in the Philippines of tapping the local marketing firm to spread pro-China propaganda in the country. He brought with him documentary evidence, including a service agreement contract, a check issued by the Chinese government for InfinitUs, as well as photos showing its employees’ participation in a Chinese embassy event.

The firm has denied the allegations in a statement, claiming that the contract presented was a “forgery crafted to fit a political narrative.” They did, however, confirm that the check presented by Tolentino was real but “legal and justified.” 

Rappler emailed the supposed marketing director of InfinitUs, Myka Basco-Poynton, who signed the service agreement for her comments. In her response to Rappler, Basco-Poynton reiterated the company’s denial and earlier statement. 

“InfinitUs Marketing Solutions, Inc. stands firm in its commitment to truth and integrity. In view of the malicious accusations made in the Senate hearing, we categorically refute the baseless claims made against our company and reaffirm our dedication to ethical business practices. This official statement was issued to dispute the allegations and defend our corporate integrity,” Basco-Poynton said in her email. 

Basco-Poynton, also a content creator with a sizeable following online, is listed as corporate secretary for InfinitUs in the firm’s General Information Sheet. A separate document obtained by Rappler from a senior government source in the intelligence community also showed flight manifestos and photos that included her as part of a media delegation sent to China for a media tour and a symposium with then- Chinese ambassador Huang Xilian in 2024. She has not answered our question to clarify her participation in that trip and event.

Also obtained by Rappler from the same source are documents that appear to be operational guidelines where operatives of InfinitUs were instructed to use “legit cell numbers” instead of emails to bypass verification, and to steal real profile photos, instructing staff to “distort or warp” the images with filters to evade detection by artificial intelligence. 

According to the document, the agency’s “social media army” included 300 Facebook accounts and 30 X accounts managed by a team of 11 operatives, including one team leader. Each operative was expected to “maintain and nurture” at least 20 accounts, each with different personas. 

These manufactured “personas” were the backbone of the alleged P3.7-million (roughly $200,000 US dollars) operation to deploy “keyboard warriors” in Philippine social media spaces, based on the copy of the alleged service agreement contract between the embassy and the agency. 

Every member of the team was expected to produce 700 to 1,000 comments and shares every month. They also monitored Facebook posts for any anti-China posts and comments.

“On a daily basis, team members should seek out public Facebook Posts that could be a potential target for hate comments against China or FB Posts that are garnering anti-China comments, then inform the team to operate on it succeedingly [sic],” the document’s instructions said.

The ‘duck principle’

Operatives were provided with operational guidelines and protocols, which included the creation of Facebook accounts with different identities and personalities, specifically one that would “best represent a person who would likely be objective about China, its role and presence in the country.”

As examples, the document listed the following personas:

They were then instructed to maintain and nurture the accounts just as they would their real accounts. “Your army should do and act its purpose. If it’s a teacher, do what a teacher would normally do with his account. Post teacher-related content, post personal content that is connected and relatable to his persona, characteristics, and behavior. It should mimic a real Facebook account,” the document said.

The guidelines told operatives that all the visual details and activities on the account, including the profile picture, cover photo, account description, and newsfeed, should have all the markings of the chosen persona. The document cited this as the “If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it must be a duck” principle.

‘Impenetrable’ disguises

To ensure these fabricated personas survived Facebook’s automated security sweeps, the agency deployed strict technical protocols. 

The manual explicitly warned that the project is a “covert and confidential operation,” requiring the creation of “impenetrable, solid and believable” accounts that operate “under the radar of Facebook restrictions.”

The first line of defense was the use of “legit cell numbers.” Operatives were instructed to avoid using email addresses for sign-ups. Instead, they were required to use valid SIM cards with unique numbers to bypass verification checkpoints, as Facebook often flags accounts for “high volume commenting” or “suspicious activity.”

Visually, the deception also required circumventing AI detection. While operatives were told to use “a real profile pic,” they were strictly ordered to ensure the image was “disguised, edited, unrecognizable, distorted or warped.” The manual suggested using photo editing apps to apply “effects, color, 3D mask, emojis and warping filters” to trick reverse-image search tools and platform moderators who may be able to detect the account using another person’s image.

Attack dogs and crisis managers

Once the accounts were established, they were weaponized to push specific political narratives and attack critics, as shown in what was labeled as a monthly report on their issue management operations. This included “Tone and Voice” guidelines that operatives echoed in their campaign.

In one instance, the “army” was deployed to launch an “aggressive comment campaign” against Surigao del Norte Representative Robert Ace Barbers after he made negative comments about China. “Mahilig kayo magsupporta sa mga batas na mali at walang basehan!” one of the suggested lines said, referring to new maritime laws signed by the President to operationalize the 2016 arbitral award.

The narratives pushed by the network went beyond mere pro-China sentiments but actively sought to undermine the Philippine government’s position on the West Philippine Sea.

Responding to the enactment of the Philippine’s Maritime Zones Act and Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act in 2025, one script instructed operatives to say that “China has all the right to oppose this because it runs counter to their territorial stand.” Another suggested that “the Philippine government should not have passed these laws because they very well know that it will intensify our conflict with China and other Asian neighbours.”

The group also targeted the Marcos administration. Scripts included attacks calling the President a puppet: “The Marcoses really are US puppets ever since Ferdinand Marcos Sr. became president.” Other comments were designed to stoke economic anxiety, saying that “the damage caused by the Marcos family to the Philippines is permanent… effectively creating a ‘debt trap’.”

Conversely, the “social media army” was tasked with praising Chinese officials. When the Chinese Ambassador or the embassy posted content, the operatives were instructed to “support the advocacies and activities.” Suggested positive comments included “China made a solemn commitment to the world to make Planet Earth a better place to live in” and “Thank you Chairman President Xi for leading the way.” 

When the Japanese embassy in the Philippines released a statement expressing concern over tensions in the South China Sea, the “Army” seemed to have also been mobilized to shift the narrative. Operatives were armed with scripts designed to attack Japan’s moral authority by focusing on the controversial discharge of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“You have no right to criticize China when you yourself don’t know right from wrong!” one script read. Another script explicitly instructed operatives to pivot the conversation. “Before you criticize China, please stop contaminating our oceans and waters with toxic, radioactive wastes from Fukushima!” 

China’s ‘invisible hand’

InfinitUS is not the first case study of commercialized disinformation put to light. 

“What makes this case unique is that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has always denied interfering with domestic issues. They do that because they’re a country with diplomatic relations with the Philippines. It’s improper for foreign mission to be interfering with domestic issues,” said Marco*, not his real name, a national security expert who wished to remain anonymous. 

“What’s unique about this case is the fact that we have documented and evidence-based studies which proves that PRC interferes with the domestic policy of the Philippines.”

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations prohibits foreign missions from meddling in domestic politics or social issues: “Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. It is also their duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.”

The Chinese embassy has never acknowledged these allegations, but InfinitUs admitted that the check presented by Tolentino, from the Chinese embassy for the firm, was “real but legal and justified.”

But for years, Philippine intelligence officials have warned of this “invisible hand” from China. Experts said that the InfinitUs documents provide a smoking gun — that this theoretical war is already fully operational inside the country. And the foot soldiers in this war are not foreign spies, but Filipinos, hired via contract, paid by check, and managed like call center agents.

The battle for the mind

Security experts have already talked about how modern conflict has gone beyond physical threats.

Philip Fortuno, who wrote the book Cognitive Domain: A Neoteric Space for Warfare, described the “cognitive domain” as the ultimate evolution of conflict. In traditional warfare, the objective is to degrade the enemy’s physical capacity to fight. In cognitive warfare, the objective is to “influence, disrupt, and corrupt” the decision-making of a target population without firing a single shot.

According to Fortuno, the goal of this tactic is to covertly “co-opt the other party to do your bidding,” whereas a direct confrontation would be too disruptive to the economy. Authoritarian states like China would have benefitted from such tactics, because not only are they effective, they’re also rather cheap.

“These operations are much cheaper than buying a warship,” Fortuno said. 

As opposed to older warfare tactics, however, these operations are meant to target non-combatants, particularly younger generations who are absorbed in social media but lack historical context, and older generations who are not tech-savvy and may be unable to use social media safely.

What’s the goal? To weaken democratic governments whose legitimacy is derived from public trust and support.

“The biggest victims are democratic governments. Because we have elections and get fresh mandates every three years…But we won’t be able to do anything if we lose [the public’s] trust and support,” Fortuno said. In his book, Fortuno wrote that these aim to fracture the national psyche. “When you can make a population doubt its own government, question its alliances, and sympathize with the aggressor, you have won the war before the first landing craft hits the beach.”

Marco echoed this, emphasizing that the “grand design is to weaken public support and increase public acceptance of China’s view of things” and “to be able to weaken public support for government policy.”

“We are a democracy. And democracies depend on public support and trust. In our case, the government has adopted a policy of resisting illegal and deceptive actions at sea, strengthening positions with allies and like-minded partners. This is what they want to discredit,” Marco said. “If you look at surveys…when you look at fishermen, and [our stand on] the West Philippine Sea, there’s wide public support. They want to weaken that resolve.”

Not the first time

This is not the first time that Beijing has been linked to coordinated information operations in the Philippines. Rappler has been looking into Chinese information operations in the Philippines as early as 2018. A Rappler report in 2023 exposed how Chinese state media content was systematically amplified by questionable news sites and coordinated Facebook groups to drown out criticism of Beijing. That investigation found that narratives were often seeded by state actors and then artificially boosted to create an illusion of public support.

Earlier in 2020, Facebook took down a pro-China coordinated fake account network with origins in China that was not only posting pro-China rhetoric, but also promoting local politicians like Senator Imee Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte. Graphika, an independent social analytics firm working with Facebook, detailed the China network in their report called Operation Naval Gazing.

Regine Cabato, a journalist who has written extensively about information operations and disinformation in the Philippines, said: “My view is, some features of the InfinitUs contract were likely attempts to remedy the missteps of this earlier network: filtered photos instead of AI, and more natural Filipino voices and personas.”

She added, “Potentially, China and/or the service provider InfinitUs understood that they needed to provide a ‘smarter’ operation than the previous network that was taken down, so it would be stickier this time around.”

According to Cabato, these evolved and smarter disinformation tactics should serve as a warning to disinformation researchers that they can no longer just rely on what they see online and your usual analysis of networks. “It is almost impossible to tell whether an account is authentic or not; all we can do is put together clues based on its behavior and characteristics,” she said, highlighting that it’s still important to back network investigations with evidence of the backend of operations. 

On this particular case, Cabato, who has read the last three years’ worth of official statements from the Chinese embassy in Manila for her dissertation, noted that “plenty of keywords and thoughts in the scripts fed to InfinitUs are actually similar, including: China’s rights, the demonization of Japan, and the idea that the Philippines troubles its Southeast Asian neighbors.”

Are we prepared for these kinds of attacks?

These potential foreign interventions serve as a jarring wake-up call for the Philippine government. While the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has launched a Transparency Initiative to expose aggressive actions at sea, the country remains dangerously exposed on the digital front.

“To be honest — this is a new threat to us,” Marco said. “We have not prepared for this. We’ve been focused on international security operations. It’s only in the past few years we’ve understood the threat…. That this is a new form of hybrid warfare.” 

Marco said though that the AFP and law enforcement have started to realize the urgency of the situation. “There’s been an exchange of information with partners…trainings, and seminars. More operations to dismantle these operations. We’ve already managed to arrest spies. Those are continuous.”

The struggle, however, is that our laws have been slow to catch up with these new forms of threats. While new laws have been proposed to deal with foreign malign interference, like the Counter Foreign Interference Act (Senate Bill No. 2951), they have not yet materialized.

But who should be the leading agency in responding to this threat? 

Marco said that it should be the National Security Council (NSC). “Because it’s the entity where the military and civilians come together. It’s not a military threat…it falls under non-traditional threats. Cognitive warfare is part of a larger hybrid model…that exploits social and political divisions.” 

Fortuno said what is required is a whole-of-society approach. On the defensive side, Fortuno highlighted the need for a new superbody that will lead the government’s approach to responding to these threats. He noted that different agencies have approached this problem in different ways, but there needs to be a streamlining of the government’s thinking and response.

More important is the need to increase our citizens’ cognitive resilience through education. “All wars start in the mind,” Fortuno said. “We have to protect our mind — whoever you are. Our mind is what separates us from animals.”

Fortuno noted that Filipinos are currently exposed and vulnerable to this always-on, insidious targeting by foreign malign actors. He emphasized the importance of revisiting how we’re teaching our youth about patriotism and critical thinking.

“What’s important here is cognitive resilience. Not just ‘whole of government,’ but ‘whole of society.’ It requires the help of families and communities. Is our educational system responsive to these threats?”

He urged civil society actors and the private sector to also engage the government and exert pressure. “Ask the government to explain what is happening. Are these just simple threats or beyond? We need to ask questions.”

The challenge ahead

The InfinitUs case proves that the war for the cognitive domain may not be a future threat but an ongoing operation. The “teacher” commenting on a news feed, the “student” sharing a viral post, and the “construction worker” mocking the President may not be fellow citizens exercising their freedom of speech but “dedicated keyboard warriors” on a foreign payroll, executing a script designed to destabilize a nation from within.

The war is indeed being fought on two fronts. The visible one — of coast guard cutters, supply missions, and diplomatic protests — and the invisible one, which is fought in the comment sections, group chats, and trending topics of social media. – Rappler.com