One of the most common social media platforms Twitter removes more pro-China accounts as they were directly linked with the State-linked effective campaigns that are currently happening inside China. These campaigns have been initiated to focus on Hong Kong protests, coronavirus pandemic, and the United States protests, which have been going on for the past week after the unjustifiable death of George Floyd.
Removal of Twitter accounts linked to the Chinese campaign
Twitter has announced the removal of 23,750 core accounts along with 150,000 amplifier accounts that were used to uplift and encourage the Chinese movement. Twitter removes more pro-China accounts due to its direct link to a campaign of the People’s Republic. To combat these escalating issues, Twitter has been banned temporarily for accessibility in China.
The main reason to use twitter was to encourage and influence people outside China towards the Key issues of the country, including the numerous and violent public demonstrations in Hong Kong, exiling of a Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui. The accounts were also used to change the perspective of people about the role of China amid the coronavirus pandemic and its strained relationship with Taiwan.
Content of influential Chinese campaign accounts
The major social networking platform Twitter removes more pro-China accounts from their website after the expert researchers working analyzed more than 348,605 tweets between the time periods of January 2018 till April 2020. These tweets were frequently posted during working hours of business days as compared to weekends, during which the number of tweets was dramatically low.
These large numbers of tweets posted from hundreds of thousands of accounts on twitter usually contained multiple images, with their captions, are written in the Chinese language. The main and primary target of these tweets sent during the campaign was towards the general population of Hong Kong and the people living near the Chinese border. To combat the growing crisis, Twitter removes more pro-China accounts from their platform.
These large amounts of twitter accounts did not have any followers, except few, which only had less than eight people following them. Even though they did not have any exceptional number of followers, these accounts did have an increased amount of activity. These engagements lead to the point that these accounts were used by a commercial bot network.
The number of 156 accounts who did not have any followers received 50 likes on their tweets. Another account that did not have any followers listed got retweeted 10 times. Another issue that was seen to be persisted as Twitter removes more pro-China accounts was the usage of older accounts that had been illegally hacked, or bought by their original users to be later used as a part of the Chinese campaign.
For instance, an account which previously displaced their profile picture as a Bangladeshi male was later abruptly changed into a Chinese female and suddenly began posting tweets in the Chinese language to oppose the ongoing public demonstrations in Hong Kong.
The reoccurring objective of these tweets was the severely violent protests in Hong Kong against the implementation of Chinese security law, and as the United States unnecessarily interfered with these protests. Multiple alleged accusations about billionaire Guo has also surfaced amid the Chinese twitter accounts. Few other main subjects were also seen in these accounts, including elections in Taiwan and praise of China regarding their efficient handling of coronavirus in their country.
Twitter removes more pro-China accounts from their network as thousands of new and older repurposed twitter accounts have surfaced to fluctuate the thinking of people. The Chinese campaign has been using thousands of twitter and Facebook accounts to back up their movement and change the opinion of people living outside China.
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