Facebook and Twitter said Monday they had suspended a slew of social media accounts believed to be tied to a Chinese government-backed campaign to spread disinformation about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Twitter said Monday it suspended 936 accounts based in China that were deliberately attempting to sow political discord and undermine the legitimacy of the movement. The accounts Twitter suspended made up the most active portions of a "larger, spammy network" of approximately 200,000 accounts, according to a Twitter blog post.
Facebook said it removed seven pages, three groups and five accounts involved in deceptive tactics to circulate news about the protests with links to people associated with the Chinese government, according to a Facebook statement. Facebook says it opened an investigation after receiving a tip from Twitter .
In a blog post announcing the shutdowns, Facebook included a sample of the material the deactivated accounts were attempting to spread. It showed an image of protesters in gas masks juxtaposed with a picture of masked gunman with the caption (translated from Chinese) "Protesters. ISIS fighters. What's the difference?"
In a related move, Twitter announced it will no longer accept advertising from "state-controlled news media entities." The new policy came after reports by Gizmodo and Buzzfeed calling attention to a surge of paid promotion of posts by Chinese government-controlled outlets such as China Daily and Xinhua criticizing the protests and portraying them as the result of American interference.
More than 1.7 million protesters filled the streets in Hong Kong on Sunday, defying police restrictions to march across the city. The gathering marked one of the larger protests in 11 weeks of unrest.
