Chinese bots flood Twitter with porn to quell Covid protest news

China witnessed an unprecedented challenge last week when thousands took to the streets against the ruling Communist party's zero-Covid policies, posing a challenge to Chinese president Xi Jinping. 

The protests created ripples across the world as videos of the rebellion went viral on social media. However, what ensued was a crackdown as Chinese authorities deployed forces to smother a rebellion, even on the internet. So much that a mere search of Chinese protests on Twitter would throw up a slew of spam tweets showing porn, escort services and gambling content. 

Reports quoting data analysts said a search for Beijing, Shanghai or any other cities in China on Twitter will lead to ads for escorts, porn, and gambling avenues, thereby drowning legitimate search results. There is a significant increase in spam tweets too.

According to Stanford Internet Observatory director Alex Stamos, the data available points to "this being an intentional attack to throw up informational chaff and reduce external visibility into protests in China." 

As per the data, the "vast majority" appears to be spam accounts that "tweet at a high, steady rate throughout the day, suggesting automation."

These spam accounts, the majority of Chinese-language accounts, were created long ago and had been lying dormant for years. They have suddenly sprung to life since early Sunday, thereby spamming Twitter with links to escort services and adult offerings, reported The Washington Post. 

Stanford University’s Mengyu Dong too took to Twitter to share some "escort ads" that popped in such searches. Sharing the images, she said these spam accounts "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.

"Sadly if a Chinese person decides to come to Twitter to find out what happened in China last night, these nsfw [not suitable for work] posts shared by bots are likely the first to show up in their search results," she wrote.

Employees with Twitter are aware of the problem and were trying to resolve it but their efforts were hindered by a shortage of staff, especially since "China influence operations and analysts at Twitter all resigned."

By late Sunday, news and images of the protests were showing up on Twitter. "Fifty per cent porn, 50 per cent protests," one U.S. government contractor and China expert, told The Washington Post.