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Twitter shuts down 1.7 lakh accounts for spreading Chinese government narratives
Twitter, along with other American social media companies such as Facebook and Instagram, is blocked in China.The company also removed two smaller state-backed operations which it attributed to Russia and Turkey, both focused on domestic audiences.Twitter said the Chinese network had links to an earlier state-backed operation dismantled last year by Twitter, Facebook and Google's YouTube that had been pushing misleading narratives about political dynamics in Hong Kong.The new operation likewise focused heavily on Hong Kong, but also promoted messages about the coronavirus pandemic, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and Taiwan, the researchers said.Renee DiResta, at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said the network's coronavirus