State-Controlled Social Media

One of the huge topics today is that Twitter has taken down a ”significant state-backed information operation“. Over the last few days I have seen a lot of comments on how the Pro-CCP trolls have been infiltrating in masses in my feed, so this is a good move from Twitter and I think they deserve credit for doing so with transparency.

We're disclosing coordinated account activity focused on the ongoing protest movement in Hong Kong. Our investigations have found that these accounts are linked to state-backed information operations from mainland China.https://t.co/Pc9R90Dp85

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) August 19, 2019

One interesting bit from Twitter’s post is this:

As Twitter is blocked in PRC, many of these accounts accessed Twitter using VPNs. However, some accounts accessed Twitter from specific unblocked IP addresses originating in mainland China.

Here’s the link to the full blog post from Twitter Safety.

Furthermore, Twitter has also updated their policies on advertising by state-media, since the PRC has been running a lot of disinformation campaings on the network, too.

Shortly after Twitter’s move, Facebook followed suit by closing a few accounts and groups. By far not as many, but again, it's a good start they are reacting.

Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China https://t.co/OvjRc7BECb

— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) August 19, 2019