Hong Kong (AFP)
Twitter announced on Friday the closure of tens of thousands of Chinese, Russian and Turkish "state-linked" accounts used for propaganda and misinformation.
The social network said it had deactivated a "core" of 23,750 accounts linked to China and relayed by some 150,000 other accounts serving as "amplifiers". Twitter also closed 7,340 accounts linked to Turkey and 1,152 linked to Russia.
All of these accounts have been closed but their content has been saved to a database for scientific research, Twitter said.
The American giant explained that the Chinese account network was discovered using tools put in place last August to erase the accounts linked to Beijing during the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
This network published tweets, mainly in Chinese and probably intended for the diaspora, "diffusing geopolitical theories favorable to the Chinese Communist Party, while supporting misleading theories on the political dynamics in Hong Kong", explained Twitter in a note of analysis.
These thousands of accounts have also served to promote Beijing's views on the fight against the coronavirus, then the anti-racist protests in the United States, said the Australian think tank ASPI, which analyzed the flow of tweets.
"While the Chinese Communist Party does not allow the Chinese people to use Twitter, our analysis shows that it does not hesitate to use it to spread propaganda and misinformation internationally," said one. ASPI officials, Fergus Hanson, in his analysis note.
As for the network of Turkish accounts, detected in early 2020, it was mainly dedicated to the promotion of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling party, according to Twitter. The Russian accounts were also used to promote the ruling party and attack its detractors.
© 2020 AFP