Taipei, Jan 12 : Taiwan's top intelligence agency accused China of using Chinese IT and marketing firms to create fake news sites, manage accounts, and gather and spread misinformation, as part of its cognitive warfare against self-ruled island, local media reported.

On Sunday, the National Security Bureau (NSB) on Sunday published its findings in an analysis on the People's Republic of China's (PRC) "cognitive warfare tactics against Taiwan in 2025," Taiwan-based Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

In 2025, Taiwan's national intelligence gathering team identified more than 45,000 fake social media accounts and over 2.314 million pieces of disinformation being spread using these ways, according to the NSB's report.

According to the NSB, this disinformation was spread by fake and/or bot accounts used by Chinese IT firms that have established databases and are creating automated programmes to manage them, under the directive of the PRC's Central Publicity Department and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

The Central Publicity Department and the MPS use marketing companies like Haixunshe, Haimai, and Huya to develop fake news websites to spread narratives that support China's official stances. The NSB noted that these websites first attract followers with clickbait soft content and then change their posts to political ones to influence the viewpoint of people of Taiwan.

The NSB further stated that China, by taking these actions, aims to create divisions within Taiwan, weaken the Taiwanese people's will to resist, influence allies' willingness to back Taiwan when required, and gain support among the people of Taiwan for China's gain. The agency stated that it was working with related government units and ramping up efforts to cooperate with fact-checking organisations and social media platform operators, urging them to reveal and take down false information.

Last week, the NSB accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of conducting military drills near the self-ruled island, along with cyberattacks, sharing over 19,000 "controversial" messages and carrying out millions of hacking intrusions, local media reported.

In a report presented to the Legislative Yuan, the agency stated that online activity involved 799 abnormal accounts and focused on increasing scepticism regarding the US, Taiwan's President William Lai and the military, referring to concerns about Taiwan's ability to defend itself, Taiwan's daily Taipei Times reported.

The bureau stated that the cyberintrusions targetting government networks intensified during the exercises, reaching around 2.08 million attacks on the first day of China's military exercises and further increased to about 2.09 million on the second day.

/IANS