Twitter and Facebook move to block Chinese state-backed disinformation campaign

US social media sites have announced coordinated action designed to counter a propaganda campaign apparently designed to undermine the Hong Kong democracy protests.

Twitter was the first site alerted to this activity, with some users flagging up sponsored posts from state-run media that seemed biased against the mass gatherings in Hong Kong that are protesting moves to give the Chinese state greater power over the semi-autonomous region.

Twitter also published a blog post titled Information operations directed at Hong Kong, in which it said “We are disclosing a significant state-backed information operation focused on the situation in Hong Kong, specifically the protest movement and their calls for political change.” This took the form of almost a thousand phoney accounts apparently designed to amplify messaging undermining the legitimacy of the Hong Kong protests, which have now been suspended.

Removing any doubt about censorship activity being coordinated between internet giants, Facebook then announced it is acting on a tip from Twitter to remove a few accounts suspected of ‘inauthentic behaviour’ from China. “Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the Chinese government,” said the Facebook announcement.

Lastly, while not explicitly referring to China, this propaganda campaign has clearly prompted Twitter to announce it will no longer accept advertising from state-controlled news media entities. Somewhat belatedly is has dawned on Twitter that state-controlled media is sometimes a tiny bit biased towards the state that controls it, which can have direct political consequences. Who knew?

Meanwhile US President Donald Trump is persisting with his claims that Google exerted some deliberate influence against him in the 2016 US general election. He cites an unspecified report that claims up to 16 million votes were manipulated in favour of his opponent Hilary Clinton in the election and called for Google to be sued.

Clinton herself has unsurprisingly queried the validity of the claim by attacking the, still unspecified, source. A number of other media have also criticised the presumed source of the claim, most of which make no secret of their antipathy towards Trump. As ever Trump’s tweet will have an underlying tactical purpose, in this case to threaten Google and any other internet company that maybe tempted to use its platform to favour his 2020 opponent.