There are a lot of changes going on at Twitter under new CEO Elon Musk. However, some things never change, such as the micro-blogging platform being hit by loads of fake accounts. This time, the nuisance profiles are coming from China and are flooding Twitter with content that is designed to block news from widespread protests in the country due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Bot accounts are flooding the site and populating searches related to China and COVID-19 within the country. These accounts are showing escort services and porn, making it extremely difficult to get proper information about what is happening with the pandemic in China.
One data analyst says there has also been an increase in tweets focusing on insurance when people search for Chinese news content.
The Chinese government directly censors any information regarding protests on social media platforms within the country. That means Chinese people turn to social networks outside the country.
Thread: Search for Beijing/Shanghai/other cities in Chinese on Twitter and you'll mostly see ads for escorts/porn/gambling, drowning out legitimate search results.
Data analysis in this thread suggests that there has been a *significant* uptick in these spam tweets. pic.twitter.com/Ao46g2ILzf— Air-Moving Device (@AirMovingDevice) November 28, 2022
Controversy
Networks such as Telegram and Twitter are not available in China and are deemed illegal. However, people can use a VPN to visit these sites outside the country.
Hundreds of Foxconn workers have been clashing with police in the Zhengzhou district last week. The Chinese government is taking criticism for how it is handling the COVID-19 pandemic, which is ongoing within the country.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Twitter confirmed it knows about the bot flood and is working on a way to remove them.
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