Action taken by Twitter against thousands of accounts connected to Chinese publicity campaign

Washington: More than 23,000 accounts, justifying the Chinese stand on the issues of Hong Kong agitation and Taiwan, have been deactivated by Twitter. Twitter has also said that action has been taken on more than 150,000 accounts, supporting this publicity campaign of the Chinese communist party. These accounts were a part of the campaign started by China to turn the opinion of the international community in its favour. The experts in the field are saying that this only exposes that the Chinese communist party can stoop to any level. Whereas, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the action taken by Twitter is prejudiced. The pro-Chinese Hong Kong administration is using force to dismantle the agitation in Hong Kong. The international community has taken serious cognisance of the matter, and nearly every country in the world is criticising China. Following the irresponsible handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, accusations are being made that the outbreak was a Chinese biological weapon. All this has caused a lot of anger in the international community. This anger is reflecting on social media. In this scenario, China initiated a publicity campaign on social media to change public opinion. Twitter pointed out that a publicity campaign of the Chinese communist regime was being run through thousands of recently opened accounts. Twitter announced deactivation of nearly 23,000 such accounts. At the same time, Twitter informed that action has also been taken against more than 150,000 accounts, supporting the Chinese publicity campaign.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed regret over the action and has called this action as discriminatory. The entire world has seen that China has handled the Coronavirus pandemic very responsibly. Despite this, Twitter has deactivated these accounts. But Twitter has not taken any action against accounts levelling various baseless allegations, including that of biological war against China. This is discriminatory. Chunying claimed that the impartial population of the world would definitely take cognisance of this fact. It has been revealed that the accounts facing action are connected with the Communist Party of China, which dominates China. Fergus Hanson, Director of International Cyber Policy Centre of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said that this hidden and deceptive publicity campaign proves that the Chinese communist party can stoop to any level.

Hanson put his finger on the double standards that the government which does not allow access to Twitter and other social media to its population, is using Twitter for the international publicity campaign. Some western newspapers have already accused that China is trying to deviate the anger against it using social media. The agents of the Chinese communist party were making allegations that the Coronavirus pandemic did not originate from China, but it is the conspiracy of the United States, and the virus has been spread around the world by the United States through its agents. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had taken serious cognisance of these allegations. Pompeo had asked ‘Does the Chinese government endorse these allegations being levelled against the United States?’ But now the Chinese conspiracy has been exposed to the world because of the action taken by Twitter. Therefore, from now on, it will not be easy for China to run any publicity campaign through social media. Since the last few years, China is seen to be investing heavily in the international press, for the betterment of its image and interests. This had brought a change in the stand, regarding China, of many renowned news agencies of the world. But due to the Coronavirus pandemic, actions in Hong Kong and Taiwan’s stand, China has become a subject of hatred around the world in recent times. A Chinese study group also pointed this out to the Chinese government. The study group warned in its report that the discontent around the world against China is many times more than the anti-China feeling in the international community post-1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, of thousands of pro-democracy protestors.