Facebook and Twitter have made claims of disinformation in Hong Kong by China. It appears in its drive to quell pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the latest weapon of the Chinese communist regime is disinformation, at least that is what Facebook and Twitter are saying. It seems the strategy has been around creating fake profiles through which the regime then propagated false information on the peaceful protesters in Hong Kong who are simply asking that their democratic rights be respected. Forbes has the story on the claims of disinformation in Hong Kong by Rachel Sandler.

Facebook and Twitter said Monday they both removed several fake accounts tied to a state-backed campaign to spread disinformation about pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, which called them violent thugs, in an attempt to sow political discord.

Facebook said it took down five accounts, seven Pages and three Groups while Twitter said it removed 936 accounts associated with the Chinese government.

On both social networking sites, the Chinese government paid to promote posts that were critical of the protesters in Hong Kong, calling them violent thugs or likening them to cockroaches or ISIS.

Twitter said it proactively suspended a larger, more spammy network of 200,000 accounts before they could substantially post. The social network also said it would no longer allow state-run media outlets to buy ads (the ban doesn’t include taxpayer-funded entities, such as independent public broadcasters).

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