Twitter removes over 30,000 accounts spreading Chinese, Russian, and Turkish propaganda

midian182

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What just happened? Twitter has removed 32,242 accounts that were discovered to be state-linked operations. The overwhelming majority of these came from China, though accounts from both Russia and Turkey were also banned.

The company writes that 23,750 accounts that were part of a “highly engaged core network” based in China have been removed. Most of these tweets were in Chinese languages, spreading Communist Party of China (CCP) propaganda and “deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong.”

In addition to those accounts, there were another 150,000 “amplifier” accounts used to spread the content to more users. Twitter said it didn’t remove these as they had little to no followers.

Twitter believes the deleted accounts were connected to 936 accounts banned in August 2019 for attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong. They also used amplifier accounts—around 200,000 of them.

Russia, no stranger to these sort of tactics, was linked to 1,152 banned accounts that were associated with Current Policy, a state-backed media outlet that likes to promote the United Russia party and attack political dissidents, writes Twitter. These also targeted local Russian-speaking users.

Finally, 7,340 accounts aimed at domestic users in Turkey were removed. These were used to spread messages of support for the AK Parti—it’s believed they were operated by the youth wing of the political party—while also voicing opinions favorable to President Erdogan.

"These compromised accounts [from Turkey] have been repeated targets of account hacking and takeover efforts by the state actors identified above," Twitter said. "The broader network was also used for commercial activities, such as cryptocurrency-related spam."

Twitter said it will continue to work at removing “bad faith actors” from its platform, while advancing public understanding of these topics.

Permalink to story.

 
Cold War between the US and virtually everybody else.

Now you have a Cold War between Social Media accounts and their subscribers based on Geopolitics.

It's basically a tug-of-war between China, Russia and America's FBI for who has control of my personal data.

The only way to win is not to play.
 
Considering how chaotic America is right now with the Black Lives Matter protests, the conjoined rioting and the formation of CHAZ, I bet America is really regretting all those times it interfered in Russian and China's politics.

One might even suggest America stop interfering in Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.

This Social Media situation is only going to get worse. Neither Trump nor any other government official should be hijacking Twitter, Facebook or Youtube for politics.

Their posting should be official and treated as "legal".

If not for the prevalence of politicians on these sites, you would have no need for these mass purges which also bring instability to the platform for regular expats who have to worry about being purged during these dragnets.
 
Cold War between the US and virtually everybody else.

Now you have a Cold War between Social Media accounts and their subscribers based on Geopolitics.

It's basically a tug-of-war between China, Russia and America's FBI for who has control of my personal data.

The only way to win is not to play.
If by everybody else you mean Russia and China, yes.

Otherwise no. You obviously live very far from Ukraine, but there's more than a cold war going on there and, big disclosure, you won't find any American soldiers doing any killing there.
 
If by everybody else you mean Russia and China, yes.

Otherwise no. You obviously live very far from Ukraine, but there's more than a cold war going on there and, big disclosure, you won't find any American soldiers doing any killing there.



Actually, by "everybody else", I meant:

US vs. Russia, China, Philippines, Columbia, Mexico, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Turkey... the list keeps going when you add in African countries.

Our outgoing president has turned even our NATO allies into wavering acquaintances.

I am currently planning a trip where I may visit Turkey and up till this presidency, I never would have worried about being there.
 
Turkey has illegally invaded Syria, is conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing versus Kurds, has invaded and occupies illegally Northern Cyprus and in addition has seen fit to build a nuclear "power plant" receiving Russian assistance.

Further, they have gotten S-400 S to A missiles despite being told that they shouldn't, as a NATO member, b/c said missiles interfere in various ways with NATO radars, air defence systems as well as military aircraft.

If I were you, I would be very worried while in Turkey. Tens of thousands of innocent Turks are imprisoned only because they were supporting an opposition party, tens of thousands of others have sought refuge in the European Union and hundreds of Turkish military personnel are being arrested every month and imprisoned on ridiculous charges.

If they do that to their own citizens, imagine what they could do to a Westerner and American citizen.

In addition, Germany said today that Turkey's Covid-19 data published is bogus and they have issued a travel advisory for Germans NOT to visit Turkey.

I don't think Trump is to blame in anyway about Erdogan's insane and dictatorial policies.
 
Considering how chaotic America is right now with the Black Lives Matter protests, the conjoined rioting and the formation of CHAZ, I bet America is really regretting all those times it interfered in Russian and China's politics.

One might even suggest America stop interfering in Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.

This Social Media situation is only going to get worse. Neither Trump nor any other government official should be hijacking Twitter, Facebook or Youtube for politics.

Their posting should be official and treated as "legal".

If not for the prevalence of politicians on these sites, you would have no need for these mass purges which also bring instability to the platform for regular expats who have to worry about being purged during these dragnets.
As I see it, even without politicians on SM sites, they are easily abused since, in places like the US, there are voters that may be influenced, and this is precisely what accounts like this are trying to do. Even if the target audience is not withing a country that votes, it is in the interests of the host government to spread propaganda to its citizens as doing so keeps the populace subscribing to their program.
 
Turkey has illegally invaded Syria, is conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing versus Kurds, has invaded and occupies illegally Northern Cyprus and in addition has seen fit to build a nuclear "power plant" receiving Russian assistance.

Further, they have gotten S-400 S to A missiles despite being told that they shouldn't, as a NATO member, b/c said missiles interfere in various ways with NATO radars, air defence systems as well as military aircraft.

If I were you, I would be very worried while in Turkey. Tens of thousands of innocent Turks are imprisoned only because they were supporting an opposition party, tens of thousands of others have sought refuge in the European Union and hundreds of Turkish military personnel are being arrested every month and imprisoned on ridiculous charges.

If they do that to their own citizens, imagine what they could do to a Westerner and American citizen.

In addition, Germany said today that Turkey's Covid-19 data published is bogus and they have issued a travel advisory for Germans NOT to visit Turkey.

I don't think Trump is to blame in anyway about Erdogan's insane and dictatorial policies.
I mostly agree with you; however, every president has the ability to influence other leaders and their intervention may or may not be effective. That said, the isolationism that the current US administration is supporting does little else, IMO, than say to other countries you are on your own and good luck with that.
 
Ok a reminder: A very well written comment with all the right punctuation and careful word choice which is defending china, especially in the Incidents where china was 100% guilty to do something ugly is a comment written by a poor soul working for the monster of tyranny and total control.
This is something I started noticing a while back on all the major platforms.
These poor souls work on almost any known resource.
My experience started with russian bots and the fact that people who worked there literally shared the job experience after quitting. But the chinese bots also got no imagination. They literally do what they are told, thus all they write is written in the same manner revealing themselves.
 
As opposed to the usual way we write here. :) jk.
It annoys me greatly. It annoys me because watching and studying humanity I realized that there are a lot of naive people who believe what strangers on the internet say. They are easily misled. I also know if they saw these obedient rows of China keyboard warriors spreading the good kind and truthful, they would be disgusted and disliked China as I dislike most of the regimes that disregard human life dignity and desire to live normal people.
 
"Twitter removes over 30,000 accounts spreading Chinese, Russian, and Turkish propaganda"
Simply remove twitter/any other platforms from those countries not interested in your "values". Would save lots of time as well as effort to make sensationalist headlines
 
Turkey has illegally invaded Syria, is conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing versus Kurds, has invaded and occupies illegally Northern Cyprus and in addition has seen fit to build a nuclear "power plant" receiving Russian assistance.

Further, they have gotten S-400 S to A missiles despite being told that they shouldn't, as a NATO member, b/c said missiles interfere in various ways with NATO radars, air defence systems as well as military aircraft.

If I were you, I would be very worried while in Turkey. Tens of thousands of innocent Turks are imprisoned only because they were supporting an opposition party, tens of thousands of others have sought refuge in the European Union and hundreds of Turkish military personnel are being arrested every month and imprisoned on ridiculous charges.

If they do that to their own citizens, imagine what they could do to a Westerner and American citizen.

In addition, Germany said today that Turkey's Covid-19 data published is bogus and they have issued a travel advisory for Germans NOT to visit Turkey.

I don't think Trump is to blame in anyway about Erdogan's insane and dictatorial policies.
Last time I checked, United States invaded far more countries than Turkey did.
As long as land of native americans aren't taken from them by force, they are always going to whine about something happening in abc place at xyz time.
 
Turkey has illegally invaded Syria, is conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing versus Kurds, has invaded and occupies illegally Northern Cyprus and in addition has seen fit to build a nuclear "power plant" receiving Russian assistance.

Further, they have gotten S-400 S to A missiles despite being told that they shouldn't, as a NATO member, b/c said missiles interfere in various ways with NATO radars, air defence systems as well as military aircraft.

If I were you, I would be very worried while in Turkey. Tens of thousands of innocent Turks are imprisoned only because they were supporting an opposition party, tens of thousands of others have sought refuge in the European Union and hundreds of Turkish military personnel are being arrested every month and imprisoned on ridiculous charges.

If they do that to their own citizens, imagine what they could do to a Westerner and American citizen.

In addition, Germany said today that Turkey's Covid-19 data published is bogus and they have issued a travel advisory for Germans NOT to visit Turkey.

I don't think Trump is to blame in anyway about Erdogan's insane and dictatorial policies.
So, they're like US but smaller?
 
Last time I checked, United States invaded far more countries than Turkey did.
As long as land of native americans aren't taken from them by force, they are always going to whine about something happening in abc place at xyz time.

Yet, Twitter, as always, lives in glass house and throws stones. God forbid they banned, say, Clintons profiles.
(this is just my addendum to your post, to which I agree with by the way )
 
Considering how chaotic America is right now with the Black Lives Matter protests, the conjoined rioting and the formation of CHAZ, I bet America is really regretting all those times it interfered in Russian and China's politics.

One might even suggest America stop interfering in Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.

This Social Media situation is only going to get worse. Neither Trump nor any other government official should be hijacking Twitter, Facebook or Youtube for politics.

Their posting should be official and treated as "legal".

If not for the prevalence of politicians on these sites, you would have no need for these mass purges which also bring instability to the platform for regular expats who have to worry about being purged during these dragnets.

Buy twitter's shares, a lot of them. Become POTUS, use twitter all the time. Profit.
Makes sense? "wink wink"
 
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