by On the evening of last Thursday (November 24), a high-rise fire broke out in a residential area in Urumqi, Xinjiang. It is said that due to reasons such as epidemic prevention and control, it was difficult for residents to escape, and firefighters did not arrive at the scene immediately. Rumors indicated that the fire caused many casualties, but the official announcement was 10 dead and 9 injured. After the incident was reported, citizens in many cities in China took to the streets to protest, mourning the unfortunate residents who died, and also protesting the government’s policy of sealing off and zeroing out.
Although China’s Great Firewall of the Internet prohibits netizens from using Twitter, many people try to upload news to Twitter through the firewall, and at the same time keep abreast of the latest protest news in various cities. Since the demonstrators held A4 white papers in their hands during the demonstration, hashtags and keywords such as “#blank paper revolution” and “#A4Revolution” appeared on Twitter and other social platforms. However, Manya Koetse, a Dutch scholar who specializes in monitoring Chinese media, found that Twitter was suspected of being washed by the cyber army with fake accounts, hoping to reduce the spread of demonstrations.
Koetse found that since the demonstrations broke out in China, when searching for Chinese cities or place names on Twitter, there will always be a large number of pornographic or gambling advertising tweets sent by fake accounts, in an attempt to cover up the truth, so that netizens cannot understand and Get in touch with real-time information about the protest. Many of the fake accounts that popped up all of a sudden added the names of places like Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Changsha, and Lanzhou, and the above-mentioned hashtags were also added to their tweets. As a result, when netizens searched, they often saw pornographic and gambling advertisements that were washed out.
Happening on Twitter at the moment at a time of unrest/protests taking place in various places across China. When trying to find the latest posts on situations in various places (in Chinese), you get endless streams of nonsense ads preventing quick access to actual information. pic.twitter.com/eJ4tkhVbWd
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) November 27, 2022
It is not the first time that news dissemination has been prevented by malicious washing. However, after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, there were a large number of layoffs. There were not many people left in charge of human rights issues, security issues, and large-scale fraud. The online army obstructs the flow of information, and it is believed that the relevant problems cannot be resolved in the short term.
Source of information and pictures:technews
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