‘RIP the Queen’: Chinese troll army floods the internet with vile claims monarch has died after British embassy's post commemorating Tiananmen Square massacre is censored within 20 minutes
- Posts from Chinese bot accounts replied to a post from British Beijing embassy
- They aimed to distract from commemorations killed in the 1989 massacre
- Sick pictures also flooded the internet depicting a deceased Queen Elizabeth
- The deluge of fake posts came in response to commemorations to those who lost their lives during the massacre in 1989 from the embassy and a British diplomat A Chinese troll army flooded the internet with a torrent of vile claims that the Queen had died on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Thousands of posts from Chinese bot accounts responded to the British embassy in Beijing with messages saying ‘R.I.P the Queen’ to distract from commemorations of those killed during the protests 32 years ago.
Sick pictures have also appeared depicting a pallid Queen Elizabeth with her eyes closed, with another stating ‘Queen Elizabeth II 1926 - 2021’.
A Chinese troll army flooded the internet with a torrent of vile claims that the Queen had died on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Pictured: One of the posts in response to the UK's Beijing embassy commemorating the Tiananmen square massacre
Pictured: An iconic photograph of a Beijing demonstrator blocking the path of a tank convoy along the Avenue of Eternal Peace near Tiananmen Square. For weeks, people had been protesting for freedom of speech and of press from the Chinese government
Thousands of posts from Chinese bot accounts responded to the British embassy in Beijing with messages saying ‘R.I.P the Queen’ to distract from commemorations of those killed during the protests 32 years ago. Pictured: Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to HMS Queen Elizabeth at HM Naval Base ahead of the ship's maiden deployment on May 22, 2021
The deluge of fake posts came in response to commemorations to those who lost their lives during the massacre in 1989 from the embassy and a British diplomat.The embassy posted a picture of a candle - a traditional symbol of protest against the brutal military crackdown on protesters.
The post was removed from Chinese social media within 20 minutes - and similar posts on Twitter were then flooded with misinformation by an army of bots with names in mandarin, written by somebody who does not appear to be a native English speaker.
One Tweet, posted word-for-word by dozens of different accounts, read: ‘I hereby pay my most solemn tribute to Her Majesty Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the Kingdom of England and of her other realms and territories Queen, My sincere condolences to the Royal Family. May her soul rest in eternal peace.’Christina Scott, the Deputy Head of Mission at the British embassy in Beijing, had a similar post flooded with vile lies about the Queen.
She tweeted: ‘Today @ukinchina posted this [a flickering candle] on Chinese social media in memory of all who lost their lives in and near Tiananmen Square, 32 years ago. It was censored within 20 minutes.’
She added that the post had been deleted ‘five minutes slower than last year’ as it was ‘clearly a busy day for the censors’.
The deluge of fake posts came in response to commemorations to those who lost their lives during the massacre in 1989 from the embassy and a British diplomat. Pictured: An example of one of the images posted by Chinese bots on Twitter
The embassy posted a picture of a candle - a traditional symbol of protest against the brutal military crackdown on protesters. In response, bots responded by posted images like this
One response to her post, from an account which has shared numerous examples of what appears to be pro-CCP propaganda, said: ‘I am glad that Prince Charles can finally become king of England.’
A recent investigation by the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University and the Associated Press found that an army of fake accounts has powered China’s rise on social media.
Thousands of bot accounts - many of them impersonating British citizens - pushed Chinese government content which received more than 16,000 retweets and replies before it was removed from the social media platform, the investigation found.
Pictured: A demonstrator speaks to the crown in Tiananmen Square in 1989
The barrage of fake posts are designed to distort social media algorithms, hiding popular posts and potentially exposing more genuine users to Chinese propaganda.
The investigation identified 26,879 accounts which had shared posts from Chinese diplomats or state media almost 200,000 times before being suspended.
The researchers were unable to determine whether the accounts were sponsored by the Chinese government, although this was denied by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Twitter said it would investigate any potential link.
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