Twitter deletes 170,000 Chinese propaganda accounts, Zoom blocks US-Chinese activists over Tiananmen call
A year ago Twitter was accused of bowing to Chinese pressure, now it's Zoom's turn
Twitter announced Thursday that had taken down more than 170,000 sites connected to a state-linked Chinese disinformation network, as well as a smaller number of accounts based in Russia and Turkey.
The accounts were spreading false information about coronavirus, Hong Kong and other issues pertaining to national and international politics.
In a blog post, Twitter said it had identified a network of 23,750 core accounts operated from China, plus 150,000 'amplifier accounts' used to boost the messages of the core with likes, retweets and so on.
"In general, this entire network was involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities. They were tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favourable to the Communist Party of China (CCP), while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong," the blog post says.
The 1,152 deleted Russian accounts were associated with Current Policy, "a media website engaging in state-backed political propaganda within Russia", and were deemed to be spreading disinformation favourable to the ruling Russia Unite party.
Twitter also deleted 7,340 "fake and compromised accounts" that were being "used to amplify political narratives favourable to the AK Parti, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan". Some of these accounts belong to Erdogan critics but are believed to have been hacked, the social media company says.
After years of studied neutrality, Twitter has been increasingly visible recently in tackling suspect accounts and spreaders of false narratives. The firm provoked a furious reaction from President Trump after publishing fact-checking links on some of his tweets.
A year ago, Twitter was forced to apologise for bowing to pressure and temporarily taking down accounts critical of China prior to the June 4th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Now video meetings firm Zoom has come under attack for blocking the accounts of Hong Kong democracy activists and US-based human rights group Humanitarian China, chaired by Zhou Fengsuo who was a student activist in Beijing at the time.
Humanitarian China said its account was suspended after a video meeting on 31st May to discuss the Tiananmen crackdown which was attended by 250 activists, some calling in from China, where discussion of the incident is illegal.
In a media statement Zoom said it is obliged to comply with local laws.
"When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws," it said. "We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters."
Zhou decried Zoom's actions as "outrageous".
"I'm very angry of course, that even in this country, in the United States … we have to be prepared for this kind of censorship," he told the South China Morning Post.
Chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance, Lee Cheuk-yan, also had his Zoom account suspended. Lee told AFP the account wend down shortly before a pre-arranged discussion on 22nd May on China's influence.
"The account was suspended before the talk started. I've asked Zoom many times whether this is political censorship but it has never replied to me," he said.
Edit: Zoom representatives say the suspended sites have now been reinstated.