The Chinese government produces 488 million'fake' social media posts a year to distract citizens from news critical of the Communist Party, a new study has revealed. According to the study, written by Harvard University professor Gary King, the goal of the secretive army of commenters is to "distract the public and change the subject" in online discussions which paint the government in a negative light. The study is reportedly the first of its kind to show concrete evidence of the existence of the '50 Cent Party', a name which references the 50 cents each worker is thought to be paid for a post. During the study, co-authored by Stanford University's Jennifer Pan and UC San Diego's Margaret E. Roberts, machine learning techniques were used to analyse millions of social media posts, based on leaked emails and databases which detail the work of the group. The research revealed co-ordinated commenting efforts, usually timed to coincide with government announcements or patriotic public holidays.