Twitter on Thursday said that it removed more than 170,000 accounts tied to a Beijing-backed influence operation that deceptively spread messages favorable to the Chinese government, including some about COVID-19.
The company suspended a core network of 23,750 highly active accounts, as well as a larger network of about 150,000 “amplifier” accounts used to boost the core accounts’ content.
Twitter, along with researchers who analyzed the accounts, said that the network was largely an echo chamber of fake accounts without much further traction.
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Twitter is blocked in China, along with other US social media companies, such as Facebook and Instagram.
The company also removed two smaller state-backed operations that it attributed to Russia and Turkey, both focused on domestic audiences.
Twitter said that the Chinese network had links to an earlier state-backed operation dismantled last year by Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube that had been pushing misleading narratives about political dynamics in Hong Kong.
The new operation likewise focused heavily on Hong Kong, but also promoted messages about the COVID-19 pandemic, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui (郭文貴) and Taiwan, the researchers said.
Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory said that the accounts praised China’s response to the virus, while also using the pandemic to antagonize the US and Hong Kong activists.
In Beijing, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said that there was a need for Chinese voices with objective views, as many platforms carried falsehoods about China.
“China is the biggest victim of disinformation,” Hua told a news briefing. “I think if Twitter wants to do something to its credit, then really the accounts that should be shut off are precisely those that organize and coordinate to attack and smear China.”
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