Is there any solid evidence of Russia and China attempting to perpetrate social schismogenesis in the US, especially through social media?
Executive summary
Yes — for Russia there is solid, publicly documented evidence of deliberate campaigns to sow social division in the United States, including covert social-media networks, hack-and-leak operations, fabricated influencers, and seized web domains; for China the evidence is more mixed and largely points to influence and audience-building rather than the same kind of covert schismogenesis Russia has practiced (Russia: DOJ/Meta/NPR/Reuters; China: ODNI/Meta) [1][2][3][4][5].
1. Russia’s playbook: covert networks, paid influencers, and seized domains
U.S. prosecutors, tech platforms and intelligence agencies have documented multiple Russian operations designed to amplify discord: the Internet Research Agency’s fake social accounts in 2016, GRU hack-and-leak campaigns, recent indictments alleging covert funding of U.S. influencers, and Justice Department actions seizing dozens of domains used to push Kremlin narratives — all concrete, attributed actions that aimed to shape U.S. political conversations and erode trust [6][3][1][7].
2. Tactics that target schismogenesis specifically
The techniques used are explicitly geared to create social cleavage: coordinated inauthentic behavior on social platforms, proxy websites amplifying distrust in institutions, targeted messaging to specific demographics, and use of recognizable domestic voices to lend credibility — methods U.S. agencies and Meta say are designed to sow doubt about elections, public health, and foreign policy, not merely to broadcast pro-Kremlin views [4][2][1].
3. China: influence, pressure, and selective covert activity, not a mirror image
Official U.S. assessments and contemporary reporting draw a distinction: China is clearly active in shaping the American information environment — pressuring critics, building audiences, and running influence campaigns — but multiple intelligence judgements, including a declassified ODNI assessment, found China did not deploy the same level of covert electoral interference seen from Russia and in some cases “considered but did not deploy” operations [5][8][2].
4. How credible and consequential is the evidence?
Attribution and law-enforcement actions provide high-confidence cases for Russia (indictments, domain seizures, platform takedowns) that meet legal and technical standards for evidence; platform threat reports and intelligence warnings reinforce that pattern [1][2][4]. By contrast, China’s footprint is more often visible as public diplomacy, pressure campaigns, and sophisticated audience-building that can shape discourse over time rather than discrete clandestine bursts designed solely to fracture U.S. society [5][9].
5. Limitations, denials, and competing agendas
Foreign governments routinely deny interference, and intelligence assessments change with new evidence; Russia, China and Iran have all rejected accusations [10]. Domestic actors — intelligence agencies, platforms, and media — have incentives to highlight threats: agencies to justify countermeasures, platforms to demonstrate responsiveness, and journalists to surface novel findings; these incentives can shape what is emphasized even when primary evidence differs in strength [11][12][2].
6. Impact so far and why schismogenesis remains a live threat
Analyses since 2016 show foreign operations have not uniformly repeated 2016’s effect but have evolved — using influencers, generative AI, and targeted content to build audiences and exploit social fissures — meaning the capacity to amplify polarization remains real even if measurable impacts vary by campaign and election cycle [13][3][2]. RAND and other researchers note Americans remain vulnerable to foreign-made memes and reflexive-control tactics even as defenses have improved [13][14].
7. Bottom line: solid evidence for Russian schismogenesis; conditional evidence for China
The public record supports a firm conclusion that Russia has deliberately used social-media ecosystems and covert networks to foster division in the U.S., backed by indictments, platform disruption and intelligence reporting [1][4][3]. For China, the evidence points to active influence operations and audience-building that can promote Beijing’s preferences and dampen criticism, but intelligence assessments have found less direct deployment of covert election interference of the Russian type — a meaningful difference in tactic and threshold of evidence [5][2].