A recent New York Times and the Washington Post (December 31) investigation revealed that the Chinese
government, which has built an extensive digital infrastructure and security apparatus to control dissent on
its own platforms, is going to even greater lengths to extend its internet dragnet to unmask and silence those
who criticize the country on Twitter, Facebook, and other international social media. This includes a
US$ 320,000 Chinese state media software program that mines Twitter and Facebook to create a database of
foreign journalists and academics; a US$ 216,000 Beijing police intelligence program that analyses Western
chatter on Hong Kong and Taiwan; and a Xinjiang cyber center cataloguing Uyghur language content
abroad. The New York Times said Chinese security forces use advanced investigation software, public
records, and databases to find all their personal information and international social media presence,
including of persons living beyond China’s borders. It said police officers are hiring internet/technology
firms for carrying out these investigations. It cited an example from 2020, when the police in Gansu province
sought companies to help monitor international social media and formulated a grading system. One criterion
included a company’s ability to analyse Twitter accounts, including tweets and lists of followers. According
to another document of May 2021, the police in Shanghai offered $1,500 to a technology firm for each
investigation into an overseas account. The New York Times report cited examples of persons of Chinese
origin in the US and Australia.
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