Twitter purges 174,000 fake accounts linked to Chinese government

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Twitter Inc. said it removed about 174,000 accounts from its platform after the social media company concluded they were fake accounts operated by the Chinese government to push its narratives around topics such as the coronavirus and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

The accounts, removed during the first three months of the year, were intended to be China’s digital foot soldiers in online debates, Twitter TWTR, +1.12% said on Thursday. In January, many of the accounts began praising China’s handling of the pandemic. According to Twitter, most of them tweeted in Chinese languages, an indication that they were intended to shape opinions in Asia rather than the U.S.

Twitter’s action comes at a time China has ramped its efforts to spread its views on some of the world’s most popular social messaging platforms. Chinese state media and government agencies have been buying up ads on U.S. social media sites and adopting online tactics reminiscent of Russian disinformation campaigns.

The efforts are part of an increasingly aggressive war-of-words between Beijing and Washington amid the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, China’s state media have carried prominently images of the recent unrest in the U.S., the police response and President Trump’s threat of force against protesters.

China has previously denied engaging in disinformation.