Twitter Suspends Hundreds of Chinese Propaganda Accounts Promoting Genocide Games

Twitter has reportedly removed hundreds of fake Chinese accounts and bots that were promoting the Genocide Games while sweeping China’s human rights abuses under the rug.

Business Insider reports that Twitter has removed hundreds of fake accounts and bots, many of which were recently included in an investigation by the New York Times and ProPublica into Chinese Olympic propaganda. The investigation found 3,000 “inauthentic-looking Twitter accounts that appeared to be coordinating to promote the Olympics by sharing state media posts with identical comments.”

Many of these accounts apparently described a positive and idealized view of the Olympic Games while ignoring controversies including human rights abuses in China. A Twitter spokesperson stated that hundreds of accounts were suspended from the platform for violating the “platform manipulation and spam policy,” which prohibits “coordinated activity that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts and automation.”

The Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider: “If we have clear evidence of state-backed information operations, our first priority is to enforce our rules and remove accounts engaging in this behavior. When our investigations are complete, we disclose all accounts and content in our information operations archive.”

Breitbart News has previously reported on China’s propaganda army and its impact on Twitter. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal investigated how Chinese accounts flooded #GenocideGames with pro-China messaging.

One of the only reported accounts that still remains active on the platform, Spicy Panda, took issue with the boycott of the Beijing Olympics in a post on February 9th, stating: “No matter how hard Uncle Liar wields its deceiving propaganda weapon to stain the Olympics, he can not stop the world’s enthusiasm toward #BeijingWinterOlympics.”

Twitter reported in December that it removed a network of 2,048 accounts “that amplified Chinese Communist Party narratives related to the treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.”

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com