According to BuzzFeed News, multiple Twitter accounts have been suspended by the social media company due to suspicious activity. The accounts in question were owned by members of the Church of Almighty God, a Chinese religious group, and run in the Hebrew language.
This move comes just days before the upcoming Israeli election, which will take place on April 9, 2019. It is still unclear as to why the accounts were suspended and whether they were related to the Israeli elections in any way. Twitter has refused to disclose detailed information regarding its actions against the accounts and the reasons behind their suspensions.
Reportedly, the firm has suspended dozens of accounts over the last few months, all of which were associated with the Chinese group. According to a source, some of these accounts were promoting and advocating right-wing political beliefs and religious content posted mostly in Hebrew under what seemed to be fake names. The source also explained that the Twitter accounts were flagged as suspicious by social media researchers because of their apparent "coordinated amplification of content". The profiles also showed up in searches “programmed to look for tweets in Hebrew (to influence Hebrew speakers) generated by account clusters outside Israel".
The source commented on this discovery:
"Essentially, a queen bee generates the narrative and worker bees generate interactions with those narratives to spread it further or to give it greater credibility.”
Allegedly, a representative of Twitter informed BuzzFeed News that the Twitter accounts were suspended due to spam violations. As for the details pertaining to exactly how the accounts were flagged and the exact number of accounts brought down, the representative refused to disclose any more information.
The Church of Almighty God is a cult-like religion also known as "Eastern Lightning" and it originates from the Chinese province of Henan. Followers of the CAG believe that Jesus Christ has already been reincarnated in the form of a Chinese woman. Other teachings include a struggle between the righteous and the "great red dragon" - China's Communist Party. The religious group has long been banned in China due to its links with kidnappings, violence and extortion in the past.
Source: BuzzFeed News
15 Comments - Add comment