Twitter admits China has created hundreds of fake accounts to undermine Hong Kong protests

Twitter on Monday admitted that China had created hundreds of fake accounts aimed at undermining the protests in Hong Kong that have gripped the city in recent weeks.

Specifically, Twitter found that at least 936 different accounts had been created within the People's Republic of China that have been "deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground."

Twitter went on to say that these accounts seem to be part of "a coordinated state-backed operation" whose end goal is suppressing protests. Twitter says that it has since suspended the accounts, which it says committed "a range of violations of our platform manipulation policies, which we define as: Spam, coordinated activity, fake accounts, attributed activity, and ban evasion."

Read Twitter's entire account of the operation at this link.