Twitter has found itself at the center of a heated political battle that goes to the heart of social media's responsibility for eradicating fake news.
promoted tweets—essentially targeted ads— to be placed by China's state media, attacking pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and blaming those campaigners for the escalating violence and civil unrest.
Dressed up as news but in reality peddling Beijing's messaging, Xinhua's consistent theme has been the Hong Kong public's demand for the restoration of social order, the threat to Hong Kong's prosperity and economy and the implication that the protesters are themselves stoking the violence. Clearly a different set of messages from those we are seeing from genuine news outlets outside China.
All that said, the protesters have themselves been criticised for over-stepping the line, with the recent airport violence as an example. But the protesters haven't paid Twitter to push a different message, so that can be argued on its merits in the free press.China's Xinhua News Agency as"foreign agents," such is their unabashed propagandist mission across Western social media outlets.
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