Facebook, Twitter may face backlash over removal of China accounts related to Hong Kong protests

Facebook and Twitter’s decision to take down accounts allegedly backed by the Chinese government to spread disinformation on Hong Kong protests may mean they face repercussions in the country even though the two social media platforms are already blocked by the Great Firewall, said analysts.

Analysts said advertising revenue the two platforms earn in the world’s second-largest economy could now be at risk as Chinese companies looking to expand overseas reassess the situation.

“Although marketing campaigns on Facebook and Twitter primarily target an overseas audience, Chinese companies that buy ads on the two may have to reconsider whether the national interest is now at stake,” said Liu Guohong, a director at Shenzhen-based think tank China Development Institute. “As such, the account suspensions may have some adverse impact on revenue the two earn in China.”

Facebook on Monday removed seven pages, three groups and five accounts involved in what it described as “coordinated inauthentic behaviour as part of a small network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong”.

On the same day, Twitter said it had suspended 936 accounts originating from within China for a number of violations of the company’s “platform manipulation policies”, including spam, coordinated activity, fake accounts and ban evasion.

Facebook’s revenue in 2018 from China-based advertisers was estimated to account for about 10 per cent of total sales, or US$5 billion, according to a note from Pivotal Research Group. Despite the lack of an official revenue breakdown ex-US, Facebook has cited China as one of its top five overseas markets, which together accounted for 57 per cent of total revenue in 2018.