DisinformationTwitter Removes 170,000 Accounts Used by China, Russia, and Turkey to Spread Disinformation

Published 12 June 2020

Twitter said Thursday it had removed more than 170,000  accounts used by China, Russia and Turkey to spread disinformation. The accounts were part of a network used to push propaganda, attack critics of the government, and spread misinformation. A majority of the accounts were linked to China.

Twitter said Thursday it had removed more than 170,000  accounts used by China, Russia and Turkey to spread disinformation. 

Twitter said these accounts consisted of a network of echo chambers, used to push propaganda, spread misinformation, and attack critics of the government. 

The New York Times reports that the biggest network of these accounts was linked to China, with 23,750 accounts which were further boosted by 150,000 “amplifier” accounts. 

The Turkish and Russian networks were much smaller, with 7,340 and 1,152 accounts, respectively. 

The company said that the accounts were terminated, but that their content, which is no longer accessible to the public,  will be archived for research and analysis.

Twitter noted that last year it had detected a Chinese network during pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and that the same systems were used to detect the most recent network.

Twitter’s analysis showed that the network which has been taken down was involved in a “range of coordinated and manipulative activities.” In addition to pushing Beijing’s narrative on the Hong Kong protests, the accounts were also spreading misinformation about coronavirus and criticizing Taiwan.

They were tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China, while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong,” Twitter said.

Social media giants such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are censored in China.

Twitter said the Turkish network was discovered in early 2020, and that it was used to boost the public image of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Russian accounts also sought to influence political opinions, promote the ruling United Russia party, and attack dissidents.

Referring to the Chinese accounts, Fergus Hanson, the director of the International Cyber Policy Center, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who worked with Twitter to discover the accounts, told the New York Times that “Persistent, covert and deceptive influence operations like this one demonstrate the extent to which the party-state will target external threats to its political power,” said

“China has, especially over the last year and a half in response to Taiwan’s elections and the Hong Kong protests, shown an increasing willingness to be aggressive with its online influence operations,” Graham Brookie, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told the Times.