China: Mark Zuckerberg’s Claims of Election Meddling ‘Absurd and Hilarious’

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday lashed out at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for stating that technicians caught China, along with Russia and Iran, while attempting to interfere in foreign elections. The Chinese derided Zuckerberg’s claims as “absurd and hilarious.”

Zuckerberg made the remarks in question during an interview with NBC News on Monday as part of Facebook’s rollout of new measures to thwart election interference:

“We continue to see [Russian and Iranain] tactics are evolving,” Zuckerberg said in the interview with Lester Holt, which will air Monday evening on “NBC Nightly News.” “Today, what we’re basically announcing is that we found a set of campaigns. They are highly sophisticated. They signal that these nation-states intend to be active in the upcoming elections.”

Zuckerberg added that China has also been found to have tried to interfere in various elections, but that the company has been able to find and stop them.

“We do see today Russia and Iran and China increasingly with more sophisticated tactics are trying to interfere in elections,” Zuckerberg said. “But part of why I’m confident going into 2020 is that we’ve played a role in defending against interference in every major election around the world since 2016, in France, in Germany, in the E.U. overall, in India, in Mexico, in Brazil.”

“That we’ve been able to proactively identify them and take them down is somewhat of a signal that our systems are much more advanced now than they have been in the past,” Zuckerberg said.

“This is not the first time that someone accuses China of meddling in U.S. presidential elections, which is just absurd and hilarious,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded on Tuesday.

“China pursues the principle of non-interference. We do not have any interest in interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, including the presidential elections in the US,” Hua insisted. 

“Those accusing China of such interference should present evidence,” she challenged.