Now that government censors have reined in dissent on domestic social media platforms, China's "stability maintenance" regime is targeting critics of the ruling party and the administration of President Xi Jinping on Twitter, deleting a large number of accounts since last month, rights activists say.
"The Chinese government has been targeting Twitter users in China as part of a nationwide crackdown on social media, even though Twitter is blocked in the country," Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote in a recent report. "Authorities have detained or summoned dozens or more Twitter users, forcing them to delete sensitive tweets or close their accounts," Wang wrote. "In some cases, authorities appear to have hacked accounts themselves."
State security police now appear to be targeting even those users with relatively few followers, with concerns expressed in interrogations and "chats" over the content of tweets, even though the content is visible only to Chinese users who have access to the right tools to circumvent censorship by the ruling Chinese Communist Party's cyberspace administration, Wang said.
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State security police now appear to be targeting even those users with relatively few followers, with concerns expressed in interrogations and "chats" over the content of tweets, even though the content is visible only to Chinese users who have access to the right tools to circumvent censorship by the ruling Chinese Communist Party's cyberspace administration, Wang said.
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