The 2022 #WinterOlympics are underway, and spammy networks such as this group of accounts with anime avatars tweeting about the "pokesperson of Chinese Embassy in the US" are taking an interest in the occasion.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
These tweets were posted by a network consisting of (at least) 152 similarly-named accounts created in batches between September 2021 and January 2022. All tweet (allegedly) via either the Twitter Web App or Twitter for Android, and all have few or no followers or followees.
Many of the tweets posted by this network are duplicated on multiple accounts. The main theme is denial of human rights abuses against Uyghurs, with "feel-good" content about Xinjiang thrown in. The network frequently uses Olympic hashtags (#WinterOlympics, #Beijing2022, etc).
Who do the accounts in this spam network retweet, quote tweet, and reply to? Each other, mostly, although they do also interact with a few large accounts, including official Chinese government accounts @zlj517 and @CGMeifangZhang.
This network also occasionally tags government officials, journalists, and organizations from a variety of countries in its tweets. The tweets containing the tags are mostly random photos from Xinjiang.
The accounts in this network use a mix of cartoon avatars (mostly anime/manga), default profile pics, and photos of actual human beings. The photos of real people are, unsurprisingly, plagiarized from various places on the Internet.
Spam networks pushing Xinjiang-related propaganda have been a thing for a while. Some threads:
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