‘What they’re doing is called distraction’: Chinese spam dilutes Twitter feeds on protests

A Twitter search on November 30, 2022 using the hashtag locator “Beijing #北京” brings up a provocative tweet (left) of a young woman as the first search result – but no sign of spreading protests against the country’s zero-tolerance Covid restrictions as shown in a photo taken of Beijing (right). © Twitter / @GFWfrog

As protests spread across China over the country’s tight anti-Covid restrictions, Twitter users searching for information on the affected cities were instead flooded with provocative tweets showing young women in suggestive poses advertising “dating” services. 

Starting Sunday, November 27, anyone searching for tweets to find information about protest hotspots like Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou will have scrolled through pages and pages of spam content, making it almost impossible to find useful information and share it. As a result, images of the protests were spreading more slowly.