Twitter Suspends FAKE Chinese Accounts Promoting 2022 Beijing Olympics Propaganda

Twitter suspends hundreds of fake Chinese accounts on the social media platform spreading 2022 Beijing Olympics propaganda during the sporting event.

As per a news story by Business Insider, Twitter's removal of numerous fake and bot accounts on its service comes after an investigation spearheaded by ProPublica and the New York Times took place, a spokesperson of the social media giant said to the news outlet.

Twitter Suspends FAKE Chinese Accounts

The spokesperson of Twitter further disclosed to Insider that the social media firm has investigated multiple accounts, which violated the "platform manipulation and spam policy" of the microblogging site.

The Twitter policy specifically says that hundreds of Chinese accounts have "coordinated activity that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts, and automation."

It is worth noting that the suspended accounts are still currently under investigation by the Twitter team.

The Twitter spokesperson went on to explain that they are still looking for any clear evidence that would confirm that the network of fake accounts and its propaganda dissemination are backed by the government of China.

Once that has been determined, the social media giant said that it would immediately remove these fake or bot accounts, which violates their rules and policies.

On top of that, Twitter also said that once its investigation has concluded, the tech giant would also share all of the involved fake accounts, as well as the content that they were spreading.

Both revelations from Twitter would be published for the benefit of the public on its "information operations archive."

That said, in the meantime, hundreds of suspected pro-China propaganda accounts would remain suspended as the investigation is still taking place.

Twitter Pro-China Beijing Olympics Fake Accounts

According to a recent report by DailyMail UK, both the New York Times and ProPublica say that there were about 3,000 "inauthentic" Twitter accounts that were allegedly trying to uplift the overall image of the Chinese Communist Party.

One of the accounts that were specified in the joint investigation was a Twitter user that goes by the name Spicy Panda.

DailyMail said in the same report that the said account was one of those who were promoting the Chinese nation. However, at the same time, the account is also boldly accusing the United States of trying to ruin the image of China.

The New York Times and ProPublica investigation went on to point out that the tweet of Spicy Panda has 284 retweets. Meanwhile, its other interactions, such as likes and comments were only a few, which suggests that there is a fake network promoting it.

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Written by Teejay Boris