Chinese Americans targeted with ‘misogynistic and insulting’ election misinformation

After Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, TikTok and Instagram saw the emergence of a particularly vicious kind of misinformation – that Harris stole someone’s husband, specifically Willie Brown, a former mayor of San Francisco.

This is false. But these rumors were soon translated into Chinese and posted on X, with the language becoming “even more inflammatory”, according to the Chinese factchecking group PiYaoBa. One Chinese influencer, whose tweet garnered more than 60,000 views, translated “stole a woman’s husband” as “mistress”.

This translation spread to other Chinese platforms like WeChat, accumulating more than 100,000 views and leading some users to refer to her using the word “chicken”, which in Mandarin is often a slur for sex workers.

It suggests how English-language misinformation is not only spreading in other languages – it also takes new, culturally specific forms.

In the year leading up to July, 228 major pieces of disinformation were targeted at Chinese-speaking users in a similar manner, garnering over 4m views, a report from Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) found. And there has been a recent surge of anti-Harris misinformation.

The dissemination is called “platform jump”, when English misinformation is translated into Chinese and then shared on platforms with a higher concentration of Chinese-Americans, said Jinxia Niu, CAA’s program manager of digital engagement.

“About 80% of the attacks on Harris are essentially personal attacks,” said Niu, “very misogynistic and insulting, almost like shouting insults in the street.”

On average, these posts have each received 26,320 views on X and 18,590 on WeChat, with total views often exceeding these numbers due to cross-platform circulation, according to the CAA. Common topics include Trump, conspiracy theories and immigration.

“The goal of racialized disinformation when it comes to elections is to suppress voter turnout in the fastest-growing electorate in the US or sway them to vote a certain way,” said Dorothy He, communications director at the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA).

Chinese Americans lean Democratic. In 2020, 56% of Chinese Americans supported Biden, with 20% backing Trump, according to the Asian American Voter Survey (AAVS). In 2024, Biden’s support decreased by 2%, while Trump’s rose by 7%. Since Harris became a candidate, her support among Chinese Americans reached a four-year high of 65%, though Trump’s support remains 4% higher than in 2020.

The scale of the misinformation issue is unclear. A separate survey found that “misinformation appears to be less prevalent for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) than for other racial groups”, indicating that the misinformation may be reaching only a fraction of Chinese Americans.

Even so, since October, platforms like PiYaoBa have seen an increase in rumors targeting Harris.

Research suggests that the primary recipients of these rumors are first-generation immigrants aged 45 to 75, of whom some may have experienced a historical lack of female empowerment and longstanding gender inequality in China, Niu said, making them targets for misinformation spreaders.

“They still believe that a woman’s most painful point is being labeled as a mistress,” Niu said. “Their assumption is that women can only gain status through their marriage, as the subordinate lover or wife of a man.”

Chinese-language misinformation about US election fraud is often linked to communism, as this has resonance for certain Chinese American readers who may feel disdain for the communist government in China, the CAA suggests.

Furthermore, many liberal or even moderate policies championed by Democrats, such as gun control, equal rights for the LGBTQ community or reproductive rights, are labeled as “communist agendas”.

A recently circulating piece of misinformation – that Elon Musk was deceived into signing gender reassignment surgery papers for one of his children – was adapted by an X influencer, @Kunluntalk. Drawing on Musk’s biography, which includes a description of his transgender daughter as a “radical Marxist”, the influencer crafted a narrative targeting Chinese immigrants:

“Musk’s eldest son was killed by the virus of wokeism,” he said. “Communism merely demands your submission, but the American Democratic party’s promotion of LGBTQ and wokeism is a hundred times more evil than communism.”

This narrative subsequently spread among platforms. After encountering videos of Musk crying and seeing posts on X, Chinese immigrant Xiaoyan Wu was convinced. She stated: “Democrats support homosexuality and are transforming middle school boys and girls, making them neither male nor female. Just look how they’ve turned Musk’s son into a girl.”

Wu immigrated from China in 2016 and currently provides cleaning services in upstate New York. She feels a distrust of the media.

“Now the mainstream news in America is all Democratic,” she said. “There’s no real news any more unless you find some brave people on Twitter who dare to speak the truth.”

However, outreach efforts from political parties to Chinese Americans are relatively low. Voter Survey reveals that 42% of Chinese Americans have not received any contact from the Democratic party, while 60% have not heard from the Republican party, both the highest percentages among all AAPI ethnic groups.

Chinese Americans have the lowest civic engagement rate among all AAPI ethnic groups.

Shuping Yin, a hairstylist in New York who immigrated to the United States from China in 2008, said it can be a struggle to stay informed: “I can’t understand the news, and I don’t watch television. It’s not my language. ”

Among 432 registered Chinese American voters, 81% speak languages other than English at home, the highest percentage among all AAPI ethnic groups, according to the 2024 Asian American Voter Survey. Additionally, 17% of Chinese Americans get most of their news from non-English sources, also the highest rate across all ethnicities.

As the election approaches, Niu is concerned that misinformation regarding election integrity will spread among Chinese-American voters.

“During the 2020 election, we saw many Chinese individuals influenced by such conspiracy theories,” she said. “Once these beliefs take hold, the audience increasingly becomes receptive only to misinformation that aligns with their existing values.”