Facebook and Twitter have blocked hundreds of accounts that appear to be part of a campaign of disinformation supported by the Chinese government.
Twitter confirmed that it has shut down 936 accounts that were coordinating to “sow political discord” and cast aspersions on “the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement” that has gripped Hong Kong for the past two months.
The social media firm conducted an investigation that produced “reliable evidence” that the accounts were acting as a “coordinated state-backed operation”. Coordinated activity and evasive action are both banned under Twitter’s platform manipulation policy, along with spammers and fake accounts.
Twitter believes the accounts to be a subset of a wider network consisting of around 200,000 fake profiles, the majority of which were identified and shut down before they were able to post a significant amount.
Acting on information from Twitter, Facebook has also identified “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” perpetrated by seven pages, five accounts and three groups with apparent links to the Chinese government. Collectively, the groups had over 2000 members while the pages had over 15,000 followers.
Facebook’s head of cybersecurity Nathaniel Gleicher said that the platform took action due to the collusion between the accounts. In a post, he noted: “The people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.” He added that the company would take the required steps if it discovered further activity.
In June, the Chinese government was accused of perpetrating a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against the encrypted messaging app Telegram by the company’s CEO Pavel Durov. The app has been used extensively by protesters in Hong Kong to organise marches.
Twitter confirmed that it has updated its advertising policies following its investigation, with media outlets that are “financially or editorially controlled” by governments no longer able to purchase ads. Groups and broadcasters that are funded by taxpayers will not be affected by the new policy.
