Social media a one-way street from Beijing

More than 78 million Facebook users follow the page of the state-run China Daily and are thus served a diet of government-approved stories.

Not a bad fan base considering that Facebook is banned in the mainland.

The huge – and growing – social media presence of Beijing-run organizations pushing a pro-China line came under the spotlight just recently when Facebook and Twitter said they had uncovered a naked propaganda campaign to shape global opinion on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.

The two platforms – neither legally accessible in China – said they were turfing off accounts linked to a government campaign to spread disinformation.

Twitter said it had suspended nearly 1,000 mainland users while Facebook removed seven pages, three groups and five accounts involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” focused on Hong Kong protests.

While Beijing has not intervened directly in the special administrative region, its media machine has stepped up a war of words.

“From destroying government buildings to … lynching, the Hong Kong rioters are standing on the brink of terrorism,” posted China Daily – which with other state media was not included in Facebook’s clean-up – last Wednesday.

There has not been any report of lynching.

Beijing wants to “shape international perception of what is happening in Hong Kong,” remarks Anne-Marie Brady, a University of Canterbury professor who researches Chinese politics and media.

She notes that the Chinese Communist Party “propaganda tradition is to use every possible medium, so it is no surprise to see them operating on Twitter and Facebook.”

While Western media reliant on advertising dollars has struggled in the free-for-all of the internet, well-funded Chinese state media outlets have ramped up their global footprint.

A growing physical presence has been matched by a virtual expansion: state news agency Xinhua has more than 12 million followers on Twitter, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily has 6.7 million and Global Times almost 1.5 million.

Among videos of cute pandas and wacky rural inventors, the accounts push an official line, especially on issues that see Beijing criticized. Special people are also given free rein on platforms most mainlanders are not allowed to read.

Beijing ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai, who joined Twitter two months ago, hinted to 15,000 followers last week that SAR protesters are a fifth column backed by Western governments.

“Hong Kong should never be used for infiltration into and sabotage of the mainland,” he tweeted in English.

One of the Chinese Twittersphere’s most outspoken commentators is Global Times editor in chief Hu Xijin, whose 77,000 followers are given his opinions on Chinese and foreign politics.

He tweeted this month: “Is the US partly responsible for the Hong Kong unrest? Yes. Unrest needs irrational emotion to keep on going. The US and the West have provided spiritual support to HK radical protesters.”

And the moves to silence Chinese-run accounts on Twitter and Facebook were greeted with protests and claims of hypocrisy in the mainland, with posters taking to the authorized Weibo platform.

“Freedom of speech in the West means you have freedom to oppose China but not freedom to love China,” wrote one user.

“They try their best to fabricate, smear and discredit us,” wrote another. “We tried our best to restore the truth to the world, but they turned a deaf ear.”

Chinese University internet policy expert Lokman Tsui says that to Beijing it doesn’t matter if its attempts to provide an alternative narrative are sometimes clumsy.

“The impact of these disinformation campaigns is not necessarily that people will straight up believe the disinformation but much more likely is that some people – especially overseas Chinese – will be unsure what to believe and start to doubt themselves,” he said.

Original Source