How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters (10 minute read)
China has long deployed propaganda and censorship to control its citizens. As the internet grows, China has turned to using platforms that it has blocked in its own country, such as Twitter and Facebook, to spread its views across the rest of the planet. A number of social media accounts were discovered to be controlled by China. Many of these accounts were created years ago and originally shared content with a range of topics, for example, sports and memes, in order to gain large followings. When the protests in Hong Kong began, the accounts suddenly started posting about China, in Chinese. Around 200,000 accounts were discovered and taken down or suspended by Twitter due to their connection with the Chinese operation. Facebook and YouTube have also completed similar investigations and removed accounts. Many of these accounts appear to have been purchased in marketplaces rather than grown organically.