Twitter Struggles With Spam As Dormant Chinese Accounts Try To Obscure News Of Dissent Against Xi Jinping

Twitter was flooded with nuisance content in China after massive protests against Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy spread across the nation. 

What Happened: Numerous Chinese-operated accounts that were dormant for months or years came to life on the weekend and started spamming — which, according to experts, was aimed at reducing the flow of news about the widespread protests, reported The Washington Post. 

"Fifty percent porn, 50 percent protests," a U.S. government contractor and China expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the publication.

See Also: Anti-Xi-Jinping Protests Drag Down Oil, WTI Futures Fall To Lowest Level In Nearly 2 Years

"Once I got 3 to 4 scrolls into the feed" to see posts from earlier in the day, it was "all porn."

The report noted that for hours, anyone searching for content related to the cities where the protests were happening or using the Chinese names for the locations would see pages of unrelated useless tweets instead of the relevant information. 

The Chinese leader and his party are grappled with unprecedented dissent as thousands of demonstrators protested in cities across the nation over the weekend against Beijing's zero-Covid strategy – with some daring to call for the president's removal openly. 

"Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!" protesters were seen yelling around the country in many videos circulating on the internet.  

An eminent analyst believes Xi has made "China the largest jail in the world," and it all will be "going down fast."

"Xi's China is going down fast… he's made China the largest jail in the world, soon the people will have had enough of communist oppression. Xi's system is failing and will fail, just a matter of time. China must change course…" an eminent Tesla analyst Ross Gerber, who is also co-founder, president, and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said in a tweet quoting videos from protests.

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