There are a lot of "zombie fans" in Chinese official accounts? Twitter investigation denies: the statement is not true

  [Global Times comprehensive report] "Twitter questioned the US State Department's claim that 'China has established a network of fake accounts'", according to CNN's report on the 8th, according to US State Department officials on the 8th, "Chinese diplomatic departments and some There are thousands of zombie account followers on the diplomat's Twitter account. The purpose is to help the Chinese government expand false information propaganda, "a Twitter company survey believes that this statement is not true.

  According to reports, the US State Department ’s Global Engagement Center Special Envoy and Coordinator Leah Gabriel said in a conference call on the 8th that State Department researchers believe that a new “helps China expand the spread of untrue information in foreign publicity” appears on Twitter Of fake accounts ". "Voice of America" ​​said that the Global Contact Center is the anti-terrorism and anti-foreign propaganda department under the US State Department. Gabriel said the department studied 36 official Twitter accounts related to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Chinese embassies and consulates and found that the number of "followers" in many of these accounts has suddenly increased since March this year. The period of time is the escalation stage of China's information warfare around the new crown virus. She said that the number of new followers on the Twitter account of the Chinese diplomatic service has soared from the previous average of 30 people per day to 720 people per day, and many of these "new fans" are newly created recently. account number.

  However, according to CNN reports, Twitter conducted a preliminary review of more than 5,000 accounts provided by the US State Department to the company, and found that many accounts belong to government entities, non-governmental organizations, and journalists. Some accounts actually expressed their opposition to China. The review is still in progress, and Twitter will follow up on the findings together with the Global Contact Center. A US State Department spokesperson told CNN, "

  The Global Contact Center only provided Twitter with a small sample of the entire data set including nearly 250,000 accounts. "" It is not surprising that any sample contains real accounts. "

  CNN commented that this is not the first time that Silicon Valley companies have questioned the Global Contact Center's claims. In February of this year, the department claimed that "there is evidence to link the false information of the new coronavirus to Russia." At that time, senior employees of Facebook and Twitter publicly asked the State Council to share the so-called "evidence." (Yu Wen)