China linked to fake ‘wanted’ poster, repression efforts against Conservative candidate

Tay was also the centre of attention early in the campaign after comments by Toronto Liberal candidate Paul Chiang in which he joked to an audience that they could earn bounty money if they turned in Tay to the Chinese consulate resurfaced. Chiang eventually dropped out as a candidate.

Kempton told reporters SITE detected repressive activity against Tay on the biggest Chinese-based social media platforms such as WeChat, TikTok, RedNote and Douyin (TikTok’s sister app in China) as well as on Facebook.

To date, SITE members said intelligence only definitively tied the PRC to a Facebook account called “Today Review” but investigations into other accounts and platforms are ongoing.

The task force said the first part of the repression campaign was “inauthentic and coordinated” amplification of information relating to the bounty and arrest warrant against Tay.

For example, posts featuring a mock wanted poster of Tay appeared “en masse” online around the time the Conservative Party announced that Tay would be its candidate in Don Valley North.

Task force members, which includes GAC, CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and the Privy Council Office, said they also discovered that Joe Tay’s name was being suppressed in searches on Chinese-based platforms like WeChat, RedNote and Douyin.

They said that when Canadian users searched Joe Tay’s Chinese name on certain platforms, the only results that would appear related to the bounty or arrest warrant. The Canadian government has already said Hong Kong’s bounties were a form of transnational repression against Tay and other dissidents.

On many of those platforms, the task force also found that positive comments or posts about Tay on those platforms were hidden from users, while disparaging or negative content was promoted.

In a short statement, Tay said his campaign had been aware of the mock “wanted” posters and other online threats against him for a while now.

“It is critical that all political parties and leaders take a clear stand against this foreign interference,” he wrote.

SITE officials noted Monday that the suspicious anti-Tay content had not generated high levels of engagement (such as comments, shares or “likes”), but was spreading to an increasing number of platforms.

“The transnational repression and its effect on the democratic process is not about a single act, but rather about the accumulated impact of many acts designed to discredit a candidate, silence criticism and dissent and manipulate the information that informs voters,” Kempton said.

“There is a profound psychological impact on victims who experience (transnational repression). They might experience fear, anxiety and stress due to continuous surveillance and harassment,” she added.

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