Twitter removes 23,750 China-linked accounts for spreading disinformation
- The accounts, most of which had no followers, were ‘spreading geopolitical narratives favourable to the Communist Party of China’, Twitter said
- One in three tweets were about Hong Kong, while others were about dissident Guo Wengui, the US civil unrest and Covid-19, according to an analysis
The US social media platform on Friday said 1,152 Russian-linked accounts and at least 7,340 Turkish government-linked accounts were also removed. These accounts spread deceptive or political narratives favourable to the incumbent governments.
“This entire network was involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities,” the company said in a press release on the recent removal.
“They were tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favourable to the Communist Party of China while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong,” it said.
The suspended China-backed accounts were part of a larger network of some 150,000 spam accounts, which were caught early and removed before they gained traction on Twitter, according to the social media firm.
Twitter and other technology companies such as Facebook are increasingly scrutinised for their management of online public platforms that could be misused for state-backed disinformation campaigns or spread speech that incite hate and violence.