This is CBS, I In The World, I'm John Batchler, the social media platforms, much in the

news. Also in the news, the People's Republic of China and its campaign to convince not

only its neighborhood in East Asia, but the whole world that it is benign, benevolent,

and looking to a better future. However, I welcome Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow Foundation

for the Defense of Democracies to help me understand the news of a Chinese influence

campaign that is described even by meta as massive and connect this with testimony that Craig

gave to the U.S. Congress in July about Chinese influence programs aimed at campuses and

other organizations of young people. Craig, a very good evening to you. Your testimony

was comprehensive about the ambition, not just about the Confucius Institute, but also

the Chinese Students and Scholar Associations and other entities associated with young

people. I'm presuming that continues even though this method announcement suggests that

it's also aiming at people much older is the understanding that young people are vulnerable,

or pray or inform because my experience of Gen Z and millennials is that you're extremely

sophisticated about propaganda on the Internet. Good evening to you, Craig.

Thanks so much, John. I mean, certainly this latest meta discovery is not a one-off. It's

really a trend and I think a growing one at that. And there's a strong desire by the

Chinese Communist Party to occupy what they call emerging public opinion spaces like the

Internet, social media, to influence global sentiments about China. And in their mind,

searching for millennials and Gen Z and other segments of our society, it's sort of right

for the taking. So this is broadly consistent with what I see. I think we've seen with other U.S.

social media companies that have uncovered similar cross-platform campaigns.

What does it look like? What did meta see? Do we have an understanding of what do they have?

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