Twitter Nukes 32,000 More State Trolls, Mostly From China

I ❤ Policemen. That’s what the cuddly, peace-loving Chinese Communist Party wants you to think. And it’s been taking over Twitter to spread its message of joy and hope.

No, wait. Not “joy and hope”—the other thing: Feeding racial unrest and lying about Hong Kong, according to Twitter. In recent days, Twitter’s social elves have been wielding the banhammer left and right, to the tune of more than 23,000 accounts associated with China.

Twitter also blocked 8,500 accounts run by the governments of Russia and Turkey. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we’re unsure what’s true anymore.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: Fractured Fracture.


五毛 FAIL; Hungry Тролли

What’s the craic? Alyza Sebenius and Kurt Wagner report—“Twitter Discloses Propaganda Campaigns Tied to Russia, China … and Turkey”:

 The social media company disclosed that it had removed 32,242 accounts for violating its policy against manipulating the service. … The 23,750 accounts tied to China tweeted messages, largely in Chinese languages, that supported the government and spread “deceptive” narratives about Hong Kong’s political dynamics.

Twitter also disclosed 1,152 Russia-linked accounts that were part of a network promoting the pro-Kremlin United Russia party and attacking dissidents. … The final batch of 7,340 accounts primarily targeted domestic audiences in Turkey. They “demonstrated strong support” for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and amplified narratives promoting the ruling AK Party.

And Ellen Nakashima, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Anna Fifield, and Lyric Li add—“Twitter removes more than 23,000 accounts it says are linked to China’s Communist Party”:

 [They were] covertly spreading propaganda to undermine pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and counter criticism of Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. … Although China’s efforts remain relatively unsophisticated, especially compared with Russia’s … Beijing is seeking stealthily to seed its propaganda and disinformation on Western social media platforms.

Over the past year, China has sought to broaden its online propaganda efforts beyond its domestic audience and has aggressively pushed its narrative in the wider world. Chinese diplomats — called “wolf warriors” for their pugnacious style — have used Twitter to spread Beijing’s message to international audiences in English and other languages. The government also has begun to surreptitiously target … audiences around the world using inauthentic or hacked accounts.

The campaign recently has broadened to exploit racial unrest in the United States. … One account, for instance, tweeted an image of Lady Liberty with a knee on the neck of George Floyd.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not answer [our] request for comment. … Instead, it responded with a general call for countries to work together. “Both the United Nations and the World Health Organization have called on all countries to strengthen unity and cooperation in cracking down on disinformation.”

O RLY? Twitter’s Del Harvey and friends disclose “networks of state-linked information operations we’ve removed”:

 We are disclosing 32,242 accounts to our archive of state-linked information operations. [They] include three distinct operations that we have attributed to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and Turkey.

Our goal is to serve the public conversation, remove bad faith actors, and to advance public understanding of these critical topics. [It’s] some of the most critical work we do at Twitter to protect the public conversation.

[The Chinese] network was involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities. They were Tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China (CCP), while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong.

A network of accounts related to … Current Policy, a media website engaging in state-backed political propaganda within Russia … was suspended for violations of … policy, specifically cross-posting and amplifying content in an inauthentic, coordinated manner for political ends. [A] network of accounts … employing coordinated inauthentic activity … targeted at domestic audiences within Turkey … was being used to amplify political narratives [and] cryptocurrency-related spam.

[All] accounts were suspended for various violations of our platform manipulation policies. … We have shared relevant data from this disclosure with two leading research partners: Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).

What do they say? SIO publishes its “Analysis of June 2020 Twitter takedowns”:

 The China Operation: … Tweets were topically divided among four main groups: the Hong Kong protests; COVID-19; exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui; and Taiwan. … Narratives around COVID-19 primarily praise China’s response to the virus, and occasionally contrast China’s response against that of the U.S. government or Taiwan. [Other tweets] focused on countering pro-democracy narratives in Hong Kong and denouncing Guo’s business contract with … Steve Bannon.

The Current Policy Operation: … This group of social-media accounts is primarily engaged in publishing pro-Kremlin, anti-opposition, and anti-Western content. [They’re] focused on amplifying pro-government activity and cheerleading for President Vladimir Putin and his party. … One of the accounts posed as a polling company … and used leading questions to elicit pro-government and anti-opposition responses. … Many of the most popular accounts were involved in a commercial operation called twishop that sold retweets and tweeted links.

The Turkey Operation: … We found batches of fabricated personalities, all created on the same day, with similar usernames. … Tweets were critical of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and accused it of terrorism and social media ploys. Tweets were also critical of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) … promoted the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum, which consolidated power in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan [and] worked to increase domestic support for Turkish intervention in Syria.

And ASPI’s Dr Jacob Wallis, Tom Uren, Elise Thomas, Albert Zhang, Dr Samantha Hoffman, Lin Li, Alexandra Pascoe and Danielle Cave focus on China—“Retweeting through the Great Firewall”:

 We have identified that this operation continues. [We] independently discovered—and verified through Twitter—additional Twitter accounts that also form a part of this operation. [It] has pivoted to try to weaponise the US Government’s response to current domestic protests and create the perception of a moral equivalence with the suppression of protests in Hong Kong.

In addition to the Twitter dataset, we’ve also found dozens of Facebook accounts that we have high confidence form part of the same state-linked information operation. … The main vector of dissemination was through images, many of which contained embedded Chinese-language text.

Similar studies support our report’s findings. … This large-scale pivot to Western platforms is relatively new, and we should expect continued evolution and improvement, given the enormous resourcing the Chinese party-state can bring to bear in aligning state messaging across its diplomacy, state media and covert influence operations. … There’s much to suggest that the CCP’s propaganda apparatus has been watching the tactics and impact of Russian disinformation.

O hai. Did someone say ASPI? Sensi seems slightly dissatisfied:

 As my own Twitter account–years old and only used to comment—seems to have been wrongly flagged and locked as part of this anti-China witch hunt, I can tell you that anybody criticizing/debunking the US state daily propaganda and lies will end up libeled as some foreign government ‘fake account.’ I guess … debunking that US propaganda is misinterpreted as ‘defending’ its geopolitical target, which is utterly grotesque.

Twitter partenering up with the utterly partisan ‘Australian Strategic Policy Institute’ (ASPI), pseudo ‘think tank’ funded by the Australian government and the usual US military-industrial complex/merchants of death/arm dealers, systematically propagandizing the US/Australian/Western anti-China geopolitical garbage all the year long, is a complete disgrace. … Appalling.

The ASPI partisan … propagandist think tank [is] funded by the usual warmongering US lobby … spamming anti-China propaganda all the year long. Now [it’s] stalking and trying to censor dissent to their propaganda over Twitter.

I guess that denouncing them months ago has nothing to do with them libelling me, among certainly others, now and trying to have my twitter account silenced.

So what does China have to say for itself? Gabriel Crossley and Se Young Lee dash off—“China says Twitter should shut down accounts that smear China”:

 Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying … arguing that the country is the biggest victim of disinformation … told reporters during a briefing that many platforms had much falsehood about China and that there was a need for Chinese voices with objective views.

But tinkerton calls it “Massive censorship”:

 That is what it is. We’re … taught to ignore it: ‘Just removing evil Chinese propaganda, nothing to see here.’

Naturally, Old School Canuck has a traditionally nuanced view:

 On the one hand, this is a “good news” story (because it reveals that Twitter really is serious about tackling the cancer of state-sponsored disinformation. … Good on Twitter for calling out [this] reprehensible behaviour.

On the other hand, the fact that this sort of thing is so rampant [raises] fundamental questions about how easy it is for pernicious actors to pervert … a civilizational boon (the advent of widely available access to massive sums of knowledge through the Internet).

Meanwhile, Roger W. Moore raises one eyebrow: [You’re fired—Ed.]

 Why stop there? I wish they would just delete Twitter.

And Finally:

Reasons to be cheerful: If it wasn’t for the pandemic, we’d have never got this bonkers nonsense

Previously in And Finally


You have been reading SB Blogwatch by Richi Jennings. Richi curates the best bloggy bits, finest forums, and weirdest websites … so you don’t have to. Hate mail may be directed to @RiCHi or [email protected]. Ask your doctor before reading. Your mileage may vary. E&OE. 30.

Image sauce: Twitter Transparency Report (terms)

Richi Jennings

Richi Jennings is a foolish independent industry analyst, editor, and content strategist. A former developer and marketer, he’s also written or edited for Computerworld, Microsoft, Cisco, Micro Focus, HashiCorp, Ferris Research, Osterman Research, Orthogonal Thinking, Native Trust, Elgan Media, Petri, Cyren, Agari, Webroot, HP, HPE, NetApp on Forbes and CIO.com. Bizarrely, his ridiculous work has even won awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors, ABM/Jesse H. Neal, and B2B Magazine.

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