That said, the take away from both analysis is that 30 (DI) - 112 (ASPI) of the ~900 accounts have high likelihood of being an disinformation network... that operated for over 2 years, using many re-purposed spam/dating/escort/porn accounts that was never sanitized to preserve cover. Evaluate the scale and operational rigor of this network and it's hard to conclude this is state-level tradecraft than some independent agent/contractor with limited resources and basic scripting knowledge.
Leave it to NYT to sneak in balance at the end with inflammatory headline.
>Elise Thomas, one of the authors of the Australian report, said that the low level of professionalism suggested that the campaign was not the work of the People’s Liberation Army or the Ministry of State Security, which have previously been linked to Chinese cyberespionage and information campaigns.
>“I would be surprised if the P.L.A. was responsible because I would expect they would be more competent than this,” Ms. Thomas said.
Yeah. Look, China is bad at foreign influence campaigns, but this is insultingly bad. I'm completely willing to believe China has expanded propaganda efforts abroad, but this doesn't feel like it.
E: unsurprisingly people are already using the article to accusing others of being bots. Because humans writing and replying unique responses are equivalent to automated bots that copy and base tweets on a schedule.