An article in CNN (April 13) confirmed other reports that Chinese Twitter users are very proRussian in their views of the war in Ukraine. It claimed that anonymous Twitter users are
exposing the extreme nationalism and pro-Russian sentiment circulating online in China — and Beijing is not happy about it. It cited the example of a prominent military blog falsely
claiming a Russian attack on a train station in Kramatorsk was actually carried out by Ukraine,
a well-known media commentator dismissing the atrocities in Bucha, and a vlogger with
hundreds of thousands of followers using a misogynistic term for Ukraine. CNN disclosed that
the Twitter posts are often hash tagged "The Great Translation Movement," or shared by an
account with the same name. It's run by a decentralized, anonymous team that crowdsources
the collection and translation of popular posts on Ukraine and other hot topics, according to its
administrator. The account was only launched in early March but has already made plenty of
friends and enemies, attracting 116,000 followers (and counting) and a slew of criticism from
China's state-run media. The overseas arm of the People's Daily — the mouthpiece of China's
ruling Communist Party — has accused the anonymous translators of attributing the "extreme
remarks" of some netizens to the "whole country." Nationalistic tabloid Global Times has
accused the group of being "Chinese-speaking bad faith actors," and one of its opinion writers
claimed the group included "foreign hostile forces" perpetuating "psychological warfare
against China."
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