The cybersecurity firm Mandiant uncovered a Chinese influence operation designed to mobilize protests against Lynas Rare Earths Ltd., a rare earth mining company. These social media attacks began after Lynas signed a $120 million contract with the Department of Defense to build a processing facility in Texas which threatened China's global dominance in the mining and processing of rare earth elements. The campaign was traced back to Dragonbridge, a group that has been posting content across seven different platforms against the rare earth facility in Texas since 2019. Dragonbridge deployed numerous social media accounts posing as Texas natives criticizing the facility for the potential environmental damage it would cause. While this operation gained far less traction than previous influence campaigns from China, it was better at micro-targeting audiences to leverage authentic criticism, according to researchers at Mandiant.