In the age of fake news, many people take advantage of social media to spread misinformation and create fake news and data about any topic that comes their way. Now it is the turn of the protests in Hong Kong and it is the Chinese government itself that has created a whole network of fake accounts to delegitimize the demonstrations.
This has been confirmed by both Twitter and Facebook, which have decided to suspend this network of fake accounts operated -allegedly- by the Chinese government. Both companies have published their investigations in which they have discovered a coordinated and intentional operation that aimed to sow political discord.
In the case of Twitter, as reported on their blog , up to 936 profiles originatingaustralia phone number in the People's Republic of China have been found : "These accounts were deliberately and specifically trying to sow political discord in Hong Kong , even undermining the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement," they explain.
Hong Kong protests
According to the social network of the blue bird, there is “reliable evidence” that it is a state-backed operation. In fact, these profiles were dedicated to amplifying messages related to the Hong Kong protests in a coordinated manner.
Facebook, for its part, has reported that the fake network created on its platform was smaller : seven pages, three groups and five accounts involved. Around 15,500 accounts followed one or more of these pages and around 2,200 accounts joined at least one of these groups.
engaged in a range of deceptive tactics, including using fake accounts that have since been disabled by our automated systems, to run pages posing as news agencies , post in groups, spread their content, and also drive users to other news sites off-platform,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy .