Twitter, the social media platform that’s already viewed as somewhat divisive thanks to its Founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, has been running ads for Xinhua News, a Chinese news publication going after the protestors in Hong Kong, reports The Next Web.
The promotions were done via promoted tweets, according to the Pinboard Twitter account, which states the following:
“Every day I go out and see stuff with my own eyes, and then I go to report it on Twitter and see promoted tweets saying the opposite of what I saw. Twitter is taking money from Chinese propaganda outfits and running these promoted tweets against the top Hong Kong protest hashtags.”
“What China is doing is clear,” continues Pinboard in another tweet. “If these peaceful, extremely self-disciplined protesters who enjoy the clear backing of the overwhelming majority of Hong Kongers can be discredited, it will be easier to crack down. What the fuck Twitter thinks it’s doing is less clear.”
According to the account, Xinhua News has called the protesters “cockroaches,” making clear their stance on the situation. The account asks that anyone at Twitter stop allowing this promotion and then asks its followers to “post or describe your favorite paid Chinese propaganda tweet” to bring awareness to the situation.
This brings up the potential for blockchain-based social media platforms and what they can and can’t provide to users. As you may know, a blockchain-based platform doesn’t have any central authority in control. Instead, the community gets to vote for changes made to the network with cryptocurrency. That said, due to a lack of third-party control, there isn’t any form of censorship. Instead, users can find something like, say, a user promoting propaganda or something else fishy, and can start a vote to take it down. That way, the community has a complete say in what goes on within the network.
The news only makes worse the tensions between the United States and China, both of which are going through a trade war as of this writing.
The popularity of cryptocurrency exchanges are one the rise among avid social media users and could bring a solution to this.
