Key Twitter Account Of The Embassy In The US, This Is China's Reaction

Illustration. (Brett Jordan / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Twitter locks the account belonging to the Chinese Embassy in the United States. The reason is that there are tweets from the account defending China's policies towards Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The reason for the locking of the @chineseEmbinUS account was because the tweet was considered inhuman and violated Twitter's internal policies regarding humanitarian issues.

The account is known to make tweets stating that Uighur women have been released and are no longer 'baby-making machines', citing research reported by state newspaper China Daily.

The tweet was removed by Twitter and replaced with a label stating that it is no longer available. Even though Twitter hides tweets that violate its policies, the account owner has to delete the post manually. The Chinese embassy account hasn't posted a new tweet since January 9.

"We have taken action on the tweet you refer to, for violating our policy against dehumanization, which states: We prohibit the dehumanization of groups of people based on religion, caste, age, disability, serious illness, national origin, race or ethnicity," said a spokesperson. Twitter, Thursday 21 January.

This lockdown move is known to come a day after the Trump administration in its final hours accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang. This accusation has the full support of the Joe Biden Administration.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment regarding Twitter's lockdown.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted that he was confused by the lockdown step. They emphasized that this was the responsibility of the embassy regarding disinformation and truth clarification.

“There are many reports and information relating to Xinjiang against China. Our embassies in the US are responsible for clarifying the truth, "explained Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying.

"We hope they will not apply double standards in this matter. We hope they can see what is true and true of misinformation on this issue, "he added.

There has been no immediate response to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, which joined Twitter in June 2019 in this regard.