Twitter removes propaganda accounts in six nations; over 2,000 Chinese accounts deleted

Microblogging platform Twitter on Thursday announced that it has shut down more than 3,400 accounts, the majority from China, over posts about pro-government propaganda. In a statement, Twitter said that it removed several hundreds of accounts from six countries but most of them were part of the network that elevated China’s Communist Party (CCP) narratives that are related to the treatment of the Muslim ethnic minority of Uyghurs in the country’s Xinjiang region. 

Twitter’s suspended accounts from China as Beijing faces accusations of violating human rights of the ethnic minority in its northwestern province where the United Nations (UN) has said that it has estimated over one million people are incarcerated in the detention camps. However, the mainland has called such establishments 're-education' centres.

Apart from 2,048 accounts linked to the pro-Beijing campaign, the microblogging platform also shut down 112 accounts connected to a company called ‘Changyu Culture’ which is linked to Xinjiang’s regional government. The other five nations where Twitter has suspended accounts include Mexico, Russia, Tanzania, Uganda and Venezuela. The US-based company also informed that “Every account and piece of content associated with these operations have been permanently removed from the service.”

For China, Twitter said, “We removed a network of accounts that amplified Chinese Communist Party narratives related to the treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Today, we’re releasing a representative sample of 2,048 accounts.”

“We also removed a network of 112 accounts connected to “Changyu Culture,” a private company backed by the Xinjiang regional government,” it added. 

It is pertinent to note that Twitter deleted over 2,000 accounts from China just a day after Meta disclosed that it has removed more than 600 Chinese accounts, pages and groups over "deceptive COVID-19-focused activity across the internet". Meta's head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher unveiled the first report on its findings on coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) and stated that the company has deleted several accounts in China, European nations, Palestine among others. 

Twitter removed network of 16 accounts from Russia 

Apart from scrapping a massive chunk of China-based accounts, Twitter said that it also removed “a network of 16 accounts linked to the IRA [Internet Research Agency] that attempted an information operation in the Central African Republic.” The microblogging platform stated that Russia’s operations were dependent on an amalgamation of “inauthentic and real accounts to introduce a pro-Russia viewpoint into Central African political discourse.” Twitter even deleted another network of 50 accounts that attacked the Libyan government and its supporters. 

(IMAGE: Unsplash/AP)