How Twitter Can Help China Spread Uighur Propaganda

Demonstration of Uighur solidarity (Twitter / @ ajplus)

JAKARTA - Jack Dorsey slipped. Sort of not wanting to be outdone by Mark Zuckerberg and his involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Dorsey and Twitter have been strongly accused of helping Chinese politics through the help of their paid feature: promoted tweets.

Dorsey's remarks before the senate last year about Twitter not following Zuckerberg's dirty footsteps and Facebook backfired against his credibility. Moreover, we remember how Dorsey spoke very loudly about neutrality as the foundation of his micro blogging philosophy.

Twitter's involvement in helping the Chinese government politics was detected in investigations by a number of journalists and global social media practitioners. The investigation found that the promoted tweets feature was used to help the politics of the Chinese government in mid-2019.

At that time, investigations found propaganda carried out by China through the Global Times account - through the massive promoted tweets - feature on Twitter. Global Times is one of the Chinese media controlled and fully controlled by the government.

According to the observation, at least the promoted tweets feature encourages the appearance of Global Times propaganda content to more than 50 times on the timeline of hundreds of millions of Twitter users in the world, even though they do not follow the Global Times. Through these propaganda contents, China tries to deny international accusations by showing Xinjiang's condition regarding the Uighur issue in their version.

Promoted tweets forced hundreds of millions of Twitter users to consume Chinese propaganda in the form of a scene of a poor elderly person in Xinjiang receiving free medical aid from the Chinese government. Global Times through Twitter's assistance tries to lead public opinion that what is happening in Xinjiang today is even more harmonious and full of joy after the tragedy of the "pig's head" terror between the Uighurs and the Han ethnicity.

This drew strong criticism of Twitter's policies. If you look at the rules of the game, Twitter's terms of service actually stipulate that they are not obliged to accept political orders via media that are suspected of being a political tool of the regime in various countries, including the Global Times which is controlled by the Chinese government. This policy was formed as a reflection of the Facebook scandal which was accused of helping Russian politics and harming the Donald Trump administration.

The greater China as a share of Twitter's business

The greater China is a Twitter name to describe the business share zone in the mainland of China as one of Twitter's revenue basins across the Asia Pacific. Huawei and Xiaomi are among Twitter's big clients.

The greater China, which has representative offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, is indeed tasty for its Twitter business. Despite being blocked among the Chinese public, Twitter's turnover is reportedly increasing. This has even forced Twitter to triple its support team fleet in the past year.

Not only promoted tweets. Twitter also provides intensive training for officials, politicians, and diplomas in the Xi Jinping regime's circle of power. These findings reinforce allegations that Twitter actually facilitates Chinese government propaganda. 'Praise' for the Xi Jinping regime who cleverly took advantage of the Twitter blockade moment among China's internal public.

This situation was exploited by using Twitter as a lighthouse to broadcast propaganda for the sake of propaganda to the outside world through paid media maintained by the government. And Twitter is used to minimize the international public's perception of the chaos in Xinjiang due to acts of violence and human rights violations committed by the Chinese government.

If you look at the theoretical side, China is actually demonstrating damage control. The land that was once a colony of East Turkemnistan --Xinjiang - is described as being in good condition. Damage control is controlling damage or chaos. A common concept carried out by various political elites after the emergence of chaos caused by their political practices. In these circumstances, the mass media is the ultimate instrument.

Chinese propaganda and Twitter contradict the fact that the effort to get rid of the Uighur race to make room for ethnic Han - who are actually immigrants - is real. A fact that has been proven by the investigations of many global journalists.

Towards Orwellian State?

Orwellian State is a term hit by George Orwell's phenomenal novel 1984, released in 1949. The term Orwellian State is used to describe the situation of a state controlled by a government regime that absolutely controls all aspects of public life.

Everything, from what is the freedom to write and choose what to read, watch, to what can be seen and what is not. The Orwellian State regime also controls the way the public thinks to determine how the public acts in their daily lives.

What is happening to China today is closer to what Orwell predicted 71 years ago. About his concern on the domination of power and control that will grow in a country. Xi Jinping and his regime seem to represent Orwell's dystopia labeled science fiction through 1984.

Now, the fate of the Uighur race is increasingly being pushed aside. They clearly need the monitoring of global humanitarian activists to fight for the rights of life and living. 'The Chairman Of Everything', - as Xi Jinping is called in his country - is a dystopia for democracy.

Through his proposal before being elected president for life in China, Xi Jinping expressed his desire to build a new concept and style of socialism to be a solution to encourage the advancement of Chinese civilization in the future. This concept continues to be nurtured at all levels of society, from housewives to workers and office employees.