A suspected Chinese influence network amplified Southern Maryland Chronicle reporting about data centers, electricity prices and the PJM power grid as part of an online campaign that X says sought to manipulate a legitimate American debate over artificial intelligence and energy policy.
The Chronicle had no involvement with the accounts, did not pay for or authorize the promotion and had no knowledge that its reporting was being used by them.
X said Thursday that its safety team identified a bot farm containing approximately 200,000 suspected Chinese inauthentic accounts. According to X, about 200 accounts within the larger network posted material that “could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.”
The accounts made claims that AI data centers were increasing household electricity prices and straining the power grid, according to X. Other posts included AI-generated cartoons portraying data center operators as profiting at the public’s expense. Some posts specifically claimed PJM had raised prices by 76% due to data center demand — a figure that does not match any actual PJM auction result; PJM’s own reports show year-over-year increases of 22% and 1.3% across its two most recent auctions, and no combination of PJM’s published figures produces a 76% change.
Reporting published by the Chronicle was among the legitimate U.S. news content used by the accounts.
The Washington Free Beacon contacted Southern Maryland Chronicle Publisher and Editor David M. Higgins II about the activity before publishing a report Friday identifying the Chronicle as one of the news organizations whose work had been amplified.
“The Southern Maryland Chronicle has not paid for, authorized, or in any way arranged for promotion of our content by the accounts shown in that post. We have no relationship with those accounts and no knowledge of who operates them,” Higgins told the Free Beacon.
“We have no involvement with and no ability to control how our publicly available content is shared or amplified by third parties, including bad actors,” Higgins said. “We want to be unambiguous that this promotion was neither requested nor sanctioned by us in any way.”
PJM AUCTION REPORTING SHARED
The material involved reporting about PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator serving Maryland, Washington, D.C., and all or parts of 12 other states.
One Chronicle article, published Dec. 29, 2025, reported on the results of PJM’s 2027/2028 capacity auction, announced Dec. 17, 2025. The auction cleared at $333.44 per megawatt-day, a 1.3% increase from the prior auction — itself a result of the same underlying pressures driving the broader PJM pricing story amplified by the accounts. That prior auction, for the 2026/27 delivery year, cleared in July 2025 at $329.17 per megawatt-day, the maximum permitted under a FERC-approved cap; PJM estimated the auction would have cleared at $388.57 per megawatt-day without that cap. That auction produced $16.1 billion in capacity costs, up 9.5% from $14.7 billion the year before and up sharply from $2.2 billion two auctions earlier. PJM’s own auction reports confirm all of these figures.
PJM Executive Vice President Stu Bresler said at the time that data centers represented a “majority” of the projected 5,400-megawatt increase in demand, and separately said of the December auction results that they left “no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply.”
Those reports predated the discovery that suspected foreign accounts were amplifying the issue.
CHRONICLE REPORTING EXAMINED MARYLAND GRID
Another Chronicle article highlighted in the broader discussion was a March 4, 2026 Capital News Service report examining data center expansion and Maryland’s electricity grid.
That story reported that Maryland residential electricity prices increased about 18% between October 2024 and October 2025, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
It also examined PJM’s capacity market. Capacity costs jumped from about $2 billion to nearly $15 billion in the 2025-26 delivery year before reaching just over $16 billion for 2026-27.
The story cited an analysis by PJM’s Independent Market Monitor finding that the increase in capacity costs stemmed almost entirely from existing and projected data center loads.
The article included supporters and critics of data center development, examining potential jobs and tax revenue alongside concerns about electricity costs, generation shortages, transmission infrastructure and environmental effects.
The reporting was produced independently of the accounts that subsequently promoted it.
QUESTIONS ABOUT BOTS’ ACTUAL INFLUENCE
While X identified the accounts as part of an attempted influence operation, independent research raises questions about whether the campaign actually reached a significant American audience.
Clemson University researcher Darren Linvill examined archived activity from at least 59 accounts connected to the campaign and found many had no followers or engagement. “No real humans saw these posts about data centers,” Linvill told Business Insider.
Linvill searched archived posts using the unusual hashtag “capacityauction,” which appeared in exactly 90 posts associated with the suspected operation. According to his analysis, all 90 were posted in January, with individual accounts typically posting only two or three times before X suspended them.
X did not disclose how many people viewed the approximately 200 accounts’ data center posts.
Separately, OpenAI disclosed in June 2026 that it had disrupted a related Chinese-linked operation that used ChatGPT to generate cartoons about grid operators’ capacity auction prices, based on regional news reporting — evidence the pattern of amplifying real reporting wasn’t confined to X alone, though it isn’t confirmed whether that operation specifically used Chronicle reporting.
The distinction matters. Evidence that a foreign influence operation attempted to amplify concerns about data centers does not establish that foreign actors created those concerns or that Americans opposing data center development were influenced by the campaign.
Samuel Woolley, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who studies propaganda and social media, told Business Insider there is broad bipartisan grassroots activity opposing data centers.
Southern Maryland provides its own extensive evidence of that domestic debate, entirely independent of any bot activity. Charles County’s Planning Commission twice recommended denial of a proposed data center zoning amendment, most recently after a June 1 public hearing where opponents packed the room and chanted “no data centers,” citing concerns over noise, water use, farmland loss and impacts on nearby residents. County commissioners withdrew the amendment entirely on July 21, opting instead to form a task force and hire an outside consultant before any future proposal.
REAL NUMBERS USED IN INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN
The episode also illustrates a complication increasingly confronting news organizations: foreign influence campaigns do not necessarily depend on fabricated news.
In this case, suspected inauthentic accounts appear to have circulated legitimate reporting about documented increases in PJM capacity prices and genuine electricity-demand pressures, while separately introducing at least one unsupported figure — the 76% claim — that doesn’t appear in any Chronicle reporting or PJM record.
PJM’s own records show capacity prices rose from $28.92 per megawatt-day for the 2024-25 delivery year to $269.92 for 2025-26, $329.17 for 2026-27 and $333.44 for 2027-28. PJM reported that forecast peak demand increased by more than 5,400 megawatts going into the 2026-27 auction and said new forecast demand continued to outpace new electricity generation.
Those figures exist independently of how foreign social media accounts chose to frame them — or misstate them.
The Chronicle will continue reporting independently on data centers, electricity costs, PJM and their effects on Southern Maryland residents while maintaining the same separation between its journalism and anyone who chooses to share it online.
You can read The Southern Maryland Chronicle’s AI Policy here: Editorial Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence
