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Porn, spam, casino content blot out posts about China protests on Twitter

Disinformation specialists claimed that this is an effort by Chinese government to suppress photographs of protesters against nation's Covid policy.

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Spam, pornography, and gorrish results have reportedly been returned to Twitter accounts who searched for active anti-Covid protests in China. Disinformation specialists claimed that this is an effort by the Chinese government to suppress photographs of protesters against the nation's extremely expensive zero-Covid policy.

The resignation of Chinese premier Xi Jinping, who for the past three years has presided over the nation's policy of "brute-force lockdowns, enforced quarantine, and computerised surveillance that has come at a catastrophic human and financial cost," has even been demanded by thousands of protesters.

The "nonstop torrent of solicitations, photographs of immodestly exposed women in inappropriate stances and apparently odd word — and phrase fragments" on Twitter in Chinese are also having an impact on users' search results. These vulgar remarks started to appear when protest locations like Beijing, Shangai, Nanjing, and Guangzhou were searched on Twitter.

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According to reports, the accounts that are posting new pornography were only made a few months ago, and they barely follow any other users or have any followers of their own. Following a fatal fire in China's Xinjiang province that left 10 people dead, irate protests increased at the same time as this "inauthentic behaviour" increased. According to reports, rigorous Covid regulations prevented the fire tenders from arriving at the blaze in time.

This alleged bot-led prevention campaign does not reflect well on Twitter's new CEO Elon Musk, who had promised to "fight a war against bots and spammers." While police continued their stringent patrols in cities, China has also started an investigation into some of the protesters who joined at the weekend demonstrations against COVID-19 regulations.

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One protester was instructed to appear at a police station on Tuesday to submit a written account of their activities on Sunday night by a caller who identified themselves as a police official in the Chinese capital, according to Reuters. In a another instance, a student's college got in contact with them and inquired if they had been in the vicinity where the events had occurred and to submit a written account.

One protester in Beijing who wished to remain anonymous told Reuters, "We are all desperately deleting our chat history." The protests that are still going on in China are the largest wave of civil unrest during President Xi Jinping's ten-year rule over the nation. Strict lockdowns are still in place, which have significantly slowed the economic system and growth of the nation.

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(With inputs from PTI)

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