Hundreds of Chinese accounts suspended by Twitter were part of a disinformation operation for years targeting critics of China’s ruling Communist Party, Australian researchers have found. After combing through 3.6 million tweets from 940 suspended Twitter accounts, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said the accounts had conducted “blunt-force influence” campaigns for “at least two years”. Twitter and Facebook last month banned 200,000 accounts for “deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong”, as part of a “state-backed” effort to discredit pro-democracy campaigners.
