And revelations of Chinese influence efforts overseas would likely add to US scepticism over Beijing’s practices and towards Chinese tech firms, they said.

Cui Lei, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, said Beijing would be unhappy with the tech companies’ actions, but its response would be limited since Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have already been blocked in mainland China.

“The Chinese side has always been wary of these services, and this will only further convince China that these types of platforms are allies of the US government in its technological and ideological competition with China,” he said. “But there will not be too large an impact to bilateral relations because the US has always believed that China’s external relations – on investment, cultural exchanges, etc – have the Chinese government in the background. The internet is no exception.”

Evan Resnick, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that the social media companies had thrown “more fuel in the fire of what’s already a burgeoning trade and technology competition between the US and China”.

“The administration in Washington is not by any means supportive of the [Hong Kong] protesters, but would probably back up the social media platforms’ decisions,” he said. “There was inevitably going to be a certain amount of technological competition, as China moves up the ladder of economic development … a fair bit of it has been a consequence of the Trump administration’s trade war tactics that escalated this.”

In response to the YouTube move, China’s foreign ministry on Friday said that the will of the Chinese people could not be collectively manipulated or blocked out.

“The greatest wish for China’s 1.4 billion citizens – including our Hong Kong compatriots – on Hong Kong is for an end to violence and disorder and a return to order, and to safeguard prosperity and stability,” spokesman Geng Shuang said at a briefing. “This is the shared will of 1.4 billion people.”

Chinese state media labels Hong Kong pro-democracy figures ‘new Gang of Four’ in fresh attacks

John Lee, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, said the dispute between the US and China was largely about different philosophies and practices on technology and was also reflected by bans on Huawei in the 5G infrastructure of the US, Australia and elsewhere. He said Beijing had grown more adept at shaping opinions and spreading disinformation on social media, particularly on Chinese-language platforms.

“For the US and like-minded countries, these revelations will reaffirm the doubts they have about China’s practices and policies and will cause them to be even more wary of any Chinese firm in those technological spaces,” he said. “For China, it will be reconfirmation that the tech rivalry is inevitable.”

China has in recent years sought to expand its influence on international social media, with contracts between the Cyberspace Administration of China regulatory body and state-run media showing efforts to promote content that follows Beijing’s line to overseas audiences. The CAC has said it needs to strengthen its external propaganda network to “tell China’s story well” in overseas social media, including beyond Facebook and Twitter, to platforms such as LinkedIn.

On Tuesday, LinkedIn said on its website that in the first half of the year, it had taken action on 21.6 million fake accounts. Responding to queries on Friday about influence operations on the Hong Kong protests, a spokeswoman said the company’s threat intelligence team would remove fake accounts based on information it uncovered and intelligence from sources that included government agencies.

“We actively seek out signs of state-sponsored activity on the platform and quickly take action against bad actors in order to protect our members,” the spokeswoman said. “We enforce our policies, which are very clear: the creation of a fake account or fraudulent activity with an intent to mislead or lie to our members is a violation of our terms of service.”

Chinese officials have finally discovered Twitter. What could possibly go wrong?

Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation think tank, said he hoped the social media policies could be evenly applied to all users propagating violence or irrational content.

“The actions seem to be one-sided, politically, on just one side,” he said. “So it can be more neutral. Facebook and Twitter for instance may also still enter China in the future. They should consider that China is still the largest market, so they should not choose sides.”

Wang added that the targeted posts on social media may not necessarily come from the Chinese government.