Chinese bots are swamping Twitter with sexually explicit posts about porn and escorts in an apparent bid to stop the spread of news about the massive protests against lockdowns and President Xi Jinping.
Searches for major Chinese cities that have seen mass protests will “mostly see ads for escorts/porn/gambling, drowning out legitimate search results,” said Air-Moving Device, sharing a series of charts.
“Data analysis in this thread suggests that there has been a significant uptick in these spam tweets,” the outlet said, sharing data retweeted by Stanford Internet Observatory director Alex Stamos.
The “vast majority” — more than 95% — appear to be spam accounts that “tweet at a high, steady rate throughout the day, suggesting automation,” the analysis said.
Stanford University’s Mengyu Dong shared images of some of the dubious “escort ads,” which she said “make it more difficult for Chinese users to access information about the mass protests.”
“Some of these acts have been dormant for years, only to become active … after protests broke out in China,” she tweeted.
nypost.com
