The takedowns of the China-linked accounts mark an escalation in the global disinformation wars. In 2015 and 2016, Russia pioneered a disinformation playbook when it used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media services to disseminate inflammatory messages intended to divide Americans in the 2016 presidential election. Since then, many other countries — including Bangladesh, Iran and Venezuela — have also turned to Facebook and Twitter to sow discord at home and abroad. China has been less visible about using Facebook and Twitter to spread disinformation in the past, researchers have said.
“Covert, manipulative behaviors have no place on our service,” Twitter said in a statement announcing the takedowns.
Facebook said it had been tipped off to the activity by Twitter. “We’re constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” Facebook said.
The actions follow another march in Hong Kong on Sunday, which organizers said had brought out 1.7 million people, or nearly one in four of the island’s total population of more than seven million. It was the second-largest march of the movement, after a protest by nearly two million people on June 16.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/technology/hong-kong-protests-china-disinformation-facebook-twitter.html
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