A short time ago Crystal Liu Yifei the star of Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Mulan though that it would be a good idea to stick her face in the political upheaval happening between Hong Kong and mainland China. Plot twist, it wasn’t.
On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media she posted:
“I support Hong Kong’s police, you can beat me up now,” followed by, “What a shame for Hong Kong.”
The backlash was pretty swift internationally with the hashtag #BoycottMulan trending on Twitter. Fast forward to the other day when Twitter deleted 100’s of what it called ‘troll accounts’ “initiated by the Chinese government”:
“These accounts were deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground.”
Twitter claims to have “reliable evidence to support that this is a coordinated state-backed operation.”
Examples of Tweets from the accounts they deleted follows:
“We don’t want you radical people in Hong Kong. Just get out of here!”
“Are these people who smashed the Legco crazy or taking benefits from the bad guys?”
“You should come to Hong Kong to see the truth, not be misled by unscrupulous Western media and politicians”
This account purge was conducted by Twitter’s public safety team who some may recall also banned people for posting “learn to code” to out of work smear merchants.
I’m going to be frank. I don’t trust Twitters ‘public safety team’ as far as I can spit on them. Anyone who has been following Twitter’s policies knows that Twitter’s idea of bad actors is a flimsy as Flat-Earthers arguments for the planet being…flat.
There are going to be plenty of legitimate people in China who are for and against the protest in Hong Kong just like there are people in this country for socialism and against socialism. I don’t trust that Twitter or Facebook have the ability or integrity to decisively determine who is or isn’t a government stooge or ‘troll account’. In this regard they are clueless and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if all they really cared about was eliminating any and all accounts that could bring bad press to Disney’s Mulan film.
I don’t think Twitter gives a toss about the protesters in Hong Kong fighting for their freedom because they sure as hell haven’t shown that they are interested in supporting such values in this country.
Source TheHollywoodReporter
