By: Emily Feng
August 20, 2019
Earlier this month, Chinese state media launched a domestic blitz depicting the Hong Kong protests as riots funded by the CIA. China-linked social media accounts then flooded Twitter and Facebook with thousands of pro-Beijing posts and targeted advertisements.
Social media companies are now pushing back.
Twitter said this week it had suspended nearly 1,000 accounts it believes are tied to Chinese state actors and that it would no longer accept advertising from state-funded media. Facebook announced shortly after that it was removing seven pages, five Facebook accounts and three groups after Twitter tipped the platform off to the use of “a number of deceptive tactics, including the use of fake accounts.”
According to data released by Twitter, almost all of the suspended accounts were disguised as personal or corporate accounts of marketing firms, international relations experts or bitcoin enthusiasts. Others posed as Hong Kong media outlets and wrote in traditional Chinese characters, the script used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.