More than 170,000 accounts tied to a Beijing-backed influence operation that deceptively spread messages favorable to the Chinese government, including some about the coronavirus, according to Twitter. The company suspended a core network of 23,750 highly active accounts, as well as a larger network of about 150,000 ‘amplifier’ accounts used to boost the core accounts’ content. Twitter, along with researchers who analyzed the accounts, said the network was largely an echo chamber of fake accounts without much further traction.Twitter is blocked in China, along with other American social media companies such as Facebook and Instagram.

The company also removed two smaller state-backed operations which it attributed to Russia and Turkey, both focused on domestic audiences.

Twitter said the Chinese network had links to an earlier state-backed operation dismantled last year by Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube that had been pushing misleading narratives about political dynamics in Hong Kong. The new operation likewise focused heavily on Hong Kong, but also promoted messages about the coronavirus pandemic, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and Taiwan, the researchers said.

The US State Department said that it had found a network of inauthentic Twitter accounts with “highly probable” linkages to China disseminating false coronavirus claims. Twitter pushed back on the assertions at the time, saying the 5,000 accounts the agency identified included legitimate non-governmental organizations and journalists.

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Beijing-backed influence operation, Chinese government, Coronavirus, domestic audiences, Facebook and Google’s YouTube, Twitter, US State Department