The logo of the social relations service (SNS) Twitter. Getty Images
As protests against the strict Corona 19 containment policy continued across China, Chinese authorities began censoring public opinion online to prevent the dissemination of information related to the protests.
Foreign media such as the Wall Street Journal reported on the 28th that Chinese police have begun examining citizens’ mobile phones in cities where large-scale anti-Corona 19 quarantine protests have been held, such as Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou. It is a crackdown warning those who have overseas social networking services (SNS) such as Instagram, Twitter and Telegram installed on their mobile phones. Some policemen have even been known to threaten to arrest citizens if they don’t delete the protest photos. These involuntary checks were conducted in various places such as bus stops, streets and shopping mall entrances.
The crackdown by the Chinese authorities is also being actively conducted online. In addition to censoring protest-related posts on domestic social networks such as WeChat and Weibo, they are also polluting public opinion on overseas social networks such as Twitter. Foreign media such as CNN reported that the number of cases of incorrect spam and pornographic posts appearing when searching major protest sites on Twitter has increased since last weekend. For example, if you search for places where large-scale protests have taken place, like “Beijing” or “Shanghai” in Chinese, you’ll see provocatively posed photos of women in skimpy costumes or spam tweets saying anything random. it is mostly floating. In particular, if you search for “Urumqi,” the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the site of the fire that sparked this protest, spam tweets implying prostitution are pouring in.
Accounts that post these tweets tweet within seconds. Most of them do not follow other accounts and have no followers. This is why it is emphasized that these are not accounts managed by real people, but ‘bots (false accounts)’ created by the authorities with automation technology to manipulate public opinion. Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), said that more than 95% of the tweets that surface during the Beijing research appear to come from bot accounts, and more than 70% of them are new accounts that have only recently left. live.
We’re still working on our analysis, but here’s some good initial data that indicates this is an intentional attack to throw information chaff and reduce external visibility on the protests in China (Twitter is blocked for most PRC citizens):https://t.co/kPK7nMeCPu
— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) November 28, 2022
Bots are making it difficult to find not only information about recent protests, but also information related to Corona 19 that can stimulate public sentiment. Charlie Smith (pseudonym), founder of Great Fire, a private organization that monitors Internet censorship in China, said, “The same thing is happening not only in Xinjiang, but also in sensitive China-related issues.” the name city where the number of confirmed corona19 cases has increased, you will get the same result.
In addition to blocking the eyes of the international community, this appears to be a move to cover the eyes of the Chinese people. Information technology (IT) media TechCrunch reported that as the Chinese government strictly censors domestic media, protesters are using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access Western services such as Twitter and Telegram. Although Twitter is officially blocked in China, the number of actual Twitter users in China is estimated to be between 3 million and 10 million.
There were also reports that Chinese authorities were even censoring the World Cup relay to appease angry public sentiment as protests against the epidemic spread. The BBC reported that CCTV5, a Chinese state-owned sports broadcaster, intentionally did not show viewers cheering without masks during the Korea-Ghana World Cup broadcast on the 28th. Previously, people who watched the Cup broadcast of the World in Qatar on Chinese messengers such as WeChat expressed dissatisfaction with China’s COVID-19 quarantine policy, saying, “Is it true that we are on the same planet (Qatar)?” which has been modified.
