WSJ "Twitter Accounts Sponsored by China Systematically Dilute Anti-Olympic Human Rights Campaign"

"Chinese-Sponsored SNS Accounts Launch Large-Scale Online Public Opinion Warfare"
Attempt to Dilute Anti-China Hashtags with Spam Posts
Human Rights Activist: "China Does Not Need to Persuade the West... Just Stirring Mud"

Protest against the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics boycott held on the 3rd (local time) in San Francisco, USA / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung] It has been reported that numerous social networking service (SNS) accounts, presumed to be sponsored by China, are deliberately 'muddying the waters' of online anti-China human rights movements. They are flooding specific hashtags used by Western human rights organizations with spam posts, confusing netizens.

On the 8th (local time), the U.S. financial media outlet Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, "Pro-China Twitter accounts are flooding hashtags critical of the Beijing Olympics."

According to WSJ, the target of these accounts is the hashtag '#GenocideGames.' This hashtag is known to have been shared by international human rights organizations as well as politicians from some Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. It was promoted as a way to raise awareness about China's human rights issues, including the oppression in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

However, recently, a large number of newly created Twitter accounts have started using this hashtag to post spam content unrelated to China's human rights abuses. WSJ reported that this appears to be a deliberate strategy to obscure the hashtag's effect and intent.

The hashtag #GenocideGames was created by Western human rights activists to condemn China's human rights abuses, but it has recently been diluted by pro-China accounts. The photo shows tweets from netizens using this hashtag. / Photo by Twitter Capture

The first to detect this 'hashtag muddying' situation was the Media Forensic Hub under Clemson University in the United States. According to the Forensic Hub, these pro-China Twitter accounts were mass-produced starting from late October last year. From then until January 20, approximately 132,000 tweets using the hashtag were posted, and about 67% of these posts were deleted according to Twitter's spam-related policies.

Among 10 newly tracked accounts by Clemson researchers, one used the #GenocideGames hashtag from its very first tweet after creation. The researchers concluded that these accounts were "specifically created from the start for the 'hashtag flooding' operation."

Regarding this, Peter Irwin, an activist with the Uyghur Human Rights Project, speculated in an interview with WSJ, "They (China) don't need to convince everyone in the West. They just want to stir up muddy waters."

Anti-Beijing Olympic Protest Held in Los Angeles, USA / Photo by Yonhap News

Meanwhile, this is not the first time suspicions have been raised that Chinese intelligence authorities are using such means to conduct 'internet public opinion warfare.' Last year, the New York Times (NYT) claimed to have obtained evidence that Chinese authorities issued bids to private companies to manipulate public opinion on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

According to documents obtained by NYT, the Chinese side allocated monthly budgets of 5,000 yuan (approximately 930,000 KRW) for 'registering overseas SNS accounts' and 'disguising and maintaining overseas SNS accounts,' and 40,000 yuan (approximately 7,510,000 KRW) for video production.

NYT reported that contracted companies were required to provide about 300 accounts per month for each overseas SNS such as Facebook, maintain these accounts for a long period, and secure a certain number of followers.

NYT evaluated this as "showing the extensive propaganda and agitation operations conducted by the Chinese government on overseas SNS."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.