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Twitter grapples with Chinese spam obscuring news of protests
Hat tip, Joe.My.God.
China Spams Twitter To Obscure Reports On Protests
November 28, 2022
The Washington Post reports:
Read the full article.
November 28, 2022
The Washington Post reports:
Twitters radically reduced anti-propaganda team grappled on Sunday with a flood of nuisance content in China that researchers said was aimed at reducing the flow of news about stunning widespread protests against coronavirus restrictions.
Numerous Chinese-language accounts, some dormant for months or years, came to life early Sunday and started spamming the service with links to escort services and other adult offerings alongside city names.
The result: Anyone searching for posts from those cities and using the Chinese names for the locations would see pages and pages of useless tweets instead of information about the daring protests as they escalated to include calls for Communist Party leaders to resign.
Read the full article.
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
TECH POLICY
Twitter grapples with Chinese spam obscuring news of protests
For hours, links to adult content overwhelmed other posts from cities where dramatic rallies escalated
By Joseph Menn
November 27, 2022 at 7:45 p.m. EST
{snip}
In mass layoffs and resignations, Twitters overall staff has been slashed from about 7,500 to roughly 2,000, surviving employees estimated. Some groups, including those dealing with human rights issues, safety concerns and deceptive foreign influence operations, have been reduced to a handful of people or no staff at all. ... Sundays campaign was another exhibit where there are now even larger holes to fill, the ex-employee said. All the China influence operations and analysts at Twitter all resigned.
The campaign was spotted by researchers at Stanford University and elsewhere. Stanford Internet Observatory Director Alex Stamos said his team is working to determine how widespread and effective it is.
A current Twitter employee told an outside researcher that the company was aware of the problem by midday and was working to resolve it. ... By late Sunday, news and images of the protests were showing up in searches for posts in cities where rallies were being held.
Fifty percent porn, 50 percent protests, said one U.S. government contractor and China expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues. Once I got 3 to 4 scrolls into the feed to see posts from earlier in the day, it was all porn.
Gift Article
https://wapo.st/3igLKoo
By Joseph Menn
Joseph Menn joined The Post in 2022 after two decades covering technology for Reuters, the Financial Times and the Los Angeles Times. His books include "Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World" (2019) and "Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet" (2010). Twitter https://twitter.com/JosephMenn
Twitter grapples with Chinese spam obscuring news of protests
For hours, links to adult content overwhelmed other posts from cities where dramatic rallies escalated
By Joseph Menn
November 27, 2022 at 7:45 p.m. EST
{snip}
In mass layoffs and resignations, Twitters overall staff has been slashed from about 7,500 to roughly 2,000, surviving employees estimated. Some groups, including those dealing with human rights issues, safety concerns and deceptive foreign influence operations, have been reduced to a handful of people or no staff at all. ... Sundays campaign was another exhibit where there are now even larger holes to fill, the ex-employee said. All the China influence operations and analysts at Twitter all resigned.
The campaign was spotted by researchers at Stanford University and elsewhere. Stanford Internet Observatory Director Alex Stamos said his team is working to determine how widespread and effective it is.
A current Twitter employee told an outside researcher that the company was aware of the problem by midday and was working to resolve it. ... By late Sunday, news and images of the protests were showing up in searches for posts in cities where rallies were being held.
Fifty percent porn, 50 percent protests, said one U.S. government contractor and China expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues. Once I got 3 to 4 scrolls into the feed to see posts from earlier in the day, it was all porn.
Gift Article
https://wapo.st/3igLKoo
By Joseph Menn
Joseph Menn joined The Post in 2022 after two decades covering technology for Reuters, the Financial Times and the Los Angeles Times. His books include "Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World" (2019) and "Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet" (2010). Twitter https://twitter.com/JosephMenn
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