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Twitter Inc. said it removed about 174,000 accounts from its platform after the social media company concluded they were fake accounts operated by the Chinese government to push its narratives around topics such as the coronavirus and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
The accounts, removed during the first three months of the year, were intended to be China’s digital foot soldiers in online debates, Twitter TWTR, -6.00% said on Thursday. In January, many of the accounts began praising China’s handling of the pandemic. According to Twitter, most of them tweeted in Chinese languages, an indication that they were intended to shape opinions in Asia rather than the U.S.
