The article is published by ProPublica.
The Winter Olympics have unfolded as an unalloyed success, a celebration of sports and political harmony that has obscured critics.
The hills at Beijing are not brown as usual this time of year. A Uyghur skier is the symbol of national unity, while a tennis player is just a curious spectator. Athletes and foreign journalists praise the politeness of the volunteers and the high-speed trains.
While China's control of what its domestic viewers and readers consume is well established, the country has spread its own version of the Games beyond its borders with an arsenal of digital tools.
China has been able to manipulate how the Winter Olympics have appeared, even outside the country, with the help of fake accounts and other tools.
David Bandurski is the director of the China Media Project, a monitoring organization. He referred to the country's leader, saying: "This is what Xi Jinping has called telling China's story well."
Chinese state media outlets and journalists, as well as diplomats, have tried to improve the image of the Olympics on the banned micro-blogging site.
China has tried to influence online discussions in ways that are not public. The New York Times and ProPublica identified a network of more than 3,000 inauthentic-looking Twitter accounts that appeared to be coordinating to promote the Olympics by sharing state media posts with identical comments. Such accounts were recently created with very few followers, and were mostly used to amplify official Chinese voices.
Some of their efforts have been centered on an account called Spicy Panda, which has been posting cartoons and videos to push back against calls for a boycott of the Olympics. In one cartoon, Spicy Panda accused the United States of using a propaganda weapon to stain the Olympics.
The network was mobilized to promote the message as the account that reposted the message was all fake. Spicy Panda's posts about the Olympics received almost no attention.
90 percent of the accounts that were created after Dec. 1 were created by Spicy Panda's supporters. The first wave of coordinated posts pushed Beijing's stance that Hong Kong's legislative council elections were legitimate. The accounts focused on the Olympics. All but one of the accounts had been suspended by Thursday, after The Times and ProPublica asked about them.
iChongqing is a state media-linked multimedia platform based in a city in central China. The accounts that shared Spicy Panda's posts often did the same thing with iChongqing's account. A request for comment was not immediately responded to by IChongqing.
A hallmark of previous campaigns was the use of botlike accounts to promote hashtags that drowned out criticism of China.
This year, they promoted content under the #Beijing2022 and #TogetherForASharedFuture terms. The world's confidence in defeating the Pandemic has been boosted by China's hosting of the #Beijing2022 as scheduled.
The Times and ProPublica identified hundreds of accounts that had been suspended for violating the platform's rules. The accounts are linked to state-backed information operations.
Bing Dwen Dwen, the official mascot of the Games, has been the subject of an organized campaign on social media.
Thousands of new or previously inactive accounts have helped the mascot go viral, he said, which China's state media presented as evidence of the mascot's popularity.
If you want to push out a lot of content on something like the Beijing Olympics, this is an easy way to do it. He said that the campaign was sponsored by the Chinese state to push Beijing's narrative on topics such as Covid-19 and the persecution of Uyghur Muslims.
The information space inside China is similar to the closed loop that keeps athletes, journalists and other participants out of the public eye.
The state carefully selects almost anything ordinary Chinese people see or read. The Olympics have been free of scandal or criticism.
When the United States men's hockey team played an overmatched Chinese team, the game was not shown on the main state television sports channel, but was mentioned in news reports. The gold medal winner in the men's figure skating competition, Nathan Chen of the United States, was not included in the slide show.
In Chinese footage of the Games, the mountains are framed to exclude the brown slopes in the background, until Day 8 when a snowstorm covered them in a frosting of white.
One of the biggest political stories of these Games has also unfolded outside China's internet firewall, and it was the appearance of a tennis player who accused a senior Communist Party leader of sexual assault.
When the global outcry over her fate threatened to overshadow the Games, the president of the International Olympic Committee met her for dinner. Ms. Peng has participated in curling and figure skating. None of that was shown in China, where all references to her accusations have been erased.
Mr. Bandurski of the China Media Project said that this is not just another narrative.
Jack Stubbs, vice president of intelligence at Graphika, said his firm had observed another Chinese propaganda network using foreign social media platforms.
The network has spread videos about the Olympics being friendly to the environment and President Putin's attendance at the opening ceremony.
China has defended its use of social media. Last year, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said that such sites were an extra channel to combat negative portrayals in the West.
According to the company's filing with the Justice Department, the company signed a $300,000 contract with the Chinese government in New York to promote the Games.
The company has been promoting the Games by recruiting social media stars to post on their accounts.
He said that it was about the Olympics and nothing to do with politics.
The sports drama dominated attention after the Games began. Some activists hoped that protests over China's human rights record would happen. Many athletes heaped praise.
Jenise Spiteri, the American snowboarder competing for Malta, said in a state media interview that everyone has a good heart.
A state media report about another American competitor, the freestyle skier. The official China Daily newspaper posted comments from Mr. Blunck.
The real China is different from what some American media have said.
Jeff Kao reported from New York. They contributed research.
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