Amazon, Meta, and Reddit all make money running advertisements for corporations that the Defense Department has determined are either controlled by or work closely with the Chinese military, a Washington Examiner review of social media repositories has found.

The trio of tech giants sold ads to DJI, Huawei, Hikvision, and Dahua, all of which appear on the Pentagon’s 1260h entity list and have faced reports linking them to the Chinese Communist Party’s repression of ethnic minorities in its far western provinces. The Pentagon adds firms to its 1260h entity list when it determines that they are “directly or indirectly owned” by the Chinese military or contribute to China’s “military-civil fusion” strategy through defense research or arms contracting.

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“Americans have learned again and again that there is nothing more expensive than a cheap Chinese product,” State Armor CEO Michael Lucci told the Washington Examiner. “U.S. technology companies should stop selling sanctioned and blacklisted CCP products altogether. Taking money to promote such products — including drones, cameras, and phones that have been repeatedly cited for national security risks — is literally selling our security out from under us, especially for technologies that have the capacity to harvest sensitive American data for Beijing.”

Indeed, an independent audit submitted to the Federal Communications Commission by Hikvision found that its cameras connect to servers located in China while running.

Hikvision, which the Pentagon has designated as a Chinese military company since June 2021, pays for ad space on Meta and Amazon’s platforms.

In addition to landing on the 1260h list, Hikvision has been sanctioned by the Commerce Department over its involvement in China’s repression of ethnic Uyghurs. Dahua, another camera manufacturer, has also long appeared on the 1260h list and has been linked to the repression of Uyghurs. Amazon takes funds from Dahua in exchange for promoting its products to marketplace customers.

American tech’s relationship with the CCP extends beyond selling ads to corporations linked to its military. The Washington Examiner previously reported that Google labels media produced by the CCP’s propaganda ministry as “news” and promotes it to users. Meta has also taken cash from CCP-run media outlets to promote their stories on Facebook and Instagram. America’s largest tech conglomerates maintain a multitude of publicly documented partnerships with corporations linked to the Chinese government. Meta has, however, severed many of its ties with 1260h entities.

Amazon sold over 1,000 ads to 1260h entities to appear on its online marketplace. Drone and camera manufacturer DJI is a major advertiser on Amazon’s platform, purchasing more than 600 ads on its online shop.

DJI, which has received extensive subsidies from Chinese state-owned entities, supplied CCP authorities with surveillance tools used to target ethnic Uyghurs. The U.S. government and international observers have described the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs as a genocide. One video filmed by Chinese authorities using a DJI drone shows hundreds of blindfolded and shackled men outside of a train station in China’s Xinjiang province. Additionally, cybersecurity experts discovered in 2020 that the app used to control DJI’s drones, which are popular among U.S. consumers, collects large quantities of personal information from its users that the Chinese government could use its power to access, the New York Times reported.

“Amazon complies with all applicable laws regarding the provision of advertising services,” a spokeswoman for the company told the Washington Examiner.

Meta, which runs the popular social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, has also taken cash from DJI to run ads.

Huawei is another major advertiser with Meta and Amazon, paying for hundreds of ads across their platforms.

The Chinese telecommunications giant was one of the first corporations to be designated as a “Chinese military company” when the Pentagon debuted its 1260h list in 2021 following a deluge of reports documenting its close ties to the CCP. A 2019 study, for instance, found “strong evidence” that Huawei works with Chinese state intelligence authorities and that its employees perform research for the CCP. A 2021 Washington Post investigation revealed that the telecommunications conglomerate’s equipment was used by the Chinese government in service of its Uyghur repression program.

Huawei has also been a key player in the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure project China uses to exert influence on developing nations. Reddit has sold at least one ad to Huawei promoting its software engineering roles to a Western audience.

Meta, Reddit, and Amazon have relatively strong ad transparency policies, allowing the public to readily inspect global data documenting who is paying for ads and where they’re being run. X, however, only provides public data on advertisements running within the European Union to comply with its regulations. This leaves Americans blind to what foreign entities are advertising on X, which has historically been targeted by foreign influence operations.

A Washington Examiner review of X’s EU advertising data found no advertising from 1260h entities. However, Amazon ads promoting DJI products have racked up millions of views on Elon Musk’s social media platform. Musk has strong business ties with China and has openly praised it — an attitude that caused friction between him and more hawkish elements of the Trump administration.

META RAKES IN AD REVENUE HELPING THE CCP EXPORT PROPAGANDA

“American companies need to make a choice: Do they want to put America first or the Chinese Communist Party first?” Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Sobolik previously told the Washington Examiner. “If they can’t muster the requisite patriotism to do the right thing, Congress and the Trump administration should step in and establish penalties for doing business with companies affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army.”

Reddit did not respond to a request for comment. Meta declined to comment.