The FBI knowledgeable Twitter of at the least one Chinese language agent amongst its staff, in line with U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, whereas hacker and whistleblower Peiter Zatko mentioned the corporate’s lax safety sparked fears that non-public knowledge on Chinese language customers was being collected by authorities in China.
Zatko, Twitter’s former head of safety, made the allegations throughout testimony earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee, detailing inside clashes between some who sought promoting income from China, and others who have been involved about doing enterprise inside China amid rising geopolitical tensions.
“In a nutshell, if we have been already in mattress, it could be problematic if we misplaced that income stream,” he mentioned.
Zatko mentioned the FBI had instructed the corporate that China’s secret service, the Ministry of State Safety, had an agent on the payroll.
A Twitter spokesperson mentioned Twitter’s hiring course of was unbiased of international affect, and that entry to non-public knowledge was topic to stringent controls, including that Zatko’s allegations have been “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.”
France-based commentator Wang Longmeng mentioned the CCP has lengthy focused Western social media platforms to wage its abroad affect campaigns, and that a number of the firm’s regional executives have shut ties to the CCP, together with Kathy Chen.
Whistleblowers
“Kathy Chen, who had a navy background, joined [the company], then Fei-fei Li grew to become an unbiased director,” Wang mentioned. “The CCP’s infiltration of Western media is considered one of its key methods.”
“It isn’t stunning that the whistleblower revealed there are Chinese language brokers at Twitter, as a result of there have been suspensions and deleted accounts, and but Twitter nonetheless permits CCP diplomats to unfold rumors and lies,” he mentioned.
Rights activist Zhou Fengsuo, a former pupil chief through the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the chairman of Humanitarian China, mentioned the U.S. authorities hasn’t responded adequately to the issue.
“Zoom closed our Zoom account for commemorating the June 4 [Tiananmen massacre], and the Zoom worker who was later indicted was a part of China’s state safety police,” Zhou instructed RFA.
“This has additionally been performed out a number of occasions at Twitter, with Kathy Chen, who everybody is aware of has a navy background, employed as managing director for the Higher China area, after which Fei-fei Li’s appointment to the board,” he mentioned. “She has beforehand expressed her loyalty to the CCP.”
“The US has carried out nothing to treatment the state of affairs,” Zhou mentioned. “It selectively ignores this huge drawback of high-tech corporations colluding with the CCP as a result of they wish to do enterprise in China.”
“I’ve been calling on the U.S. authorities to analyze all high-tech corporations,” he mentioned.
Blocking of web sites
“The Nice Translation Motion, which makes use of Twitter as its primary platform, has been repeatedly banned by Twitter officers for violations of the principles,” the blogger mentioned.
“With Twitter administration infiltrated by CCP forces, staff usually take a pro-China stance in terms of Chinese language censorship on the platform,” they mentioned.
“This shameless apply can be taking place on different platforms which were infiltrated by the CCP.”
The blogger mentioned many Chinese language rights activists who use Twitter have been subsequently summoned by state safety police for posting politically delicate materials, but the corporate has remained silent on how a lot person knowledge is being leaked to the Chinese language authorities.
“We frequently hear about Chinese language customers being ‘invited to tea’ by the native police due to politically delicate remarks on Twitter, however Twitter officers have by no means responded to questions concerning the disclosure of customers’ private data [to the Chinese authorities],” they mentioned.
“Beneath the affect of CCP capital, Twitter has moved nearer to Weibo.”
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
