Twitter is taking money from the Chinese Communist Party.
And it’s putting Twitter users at risk
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
When you go online, you should be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect your identity.
So, Twitter.
It’s more than just the raging dumpster fire of humanity.
It’s also a place where the Chinese Communist Party can freely spread its propaganda.
And Twitter will even help the Party spread that propaganda—for a price.
Yes, a new absolutely enraging report from Reuters shows how China became big business for Twitter.
Even though, like most Western social media platforms, Twitter is banned in China.
But you can still access Twitter inside China by using a VPN,
like Sufshark, to get around China’s firewall.
A VPN can help protect you while browsing the web anonymously. But it can’t protect
you if you’re logged into Twitter, and Twitter is letting Chinese agents access
your account information. Which is apparently what’s happening.
If you didn’t already despise Twitter before this episode, buckle up, it gets so much worse.
It all started when Twitter decided it would be a great idea to make money in China.
Specifically, by selling ads to Chinese companies and especially the Chinese Communist Party.
According to Reuters, “Local government
authorities and Chinese Communist Party propaganda offices for cities,
provinces and even districts across the country have flocked to Twitter to buy ads.”
It’s true that Twitter has closed thousands of China state-linked
accounts for spreading propaganda before. These were mostly shell accounts and bots.
But Twitter has also suspended the accounts of a
lot of individual Chinese users who’ve been critical of the Chinese regime.
Twitter employees have even helped China’s propaganda apparatus get its message across.
They provided certain Chinese officials with support,
like verifying their accounts and training them on how to amplify messages.
It’s a balancing game. Look like you’re dealing with the propaganda problem,
while also training the Chinese government on how to spread their propaganda better.
“Twitter’s China sales team actively courted local
governments in the country as part of its global strategy to compete
for ad business with tech rivals like Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook.”
Twitter even attempted to set up what would’ve been the company’s first mainland China-based
sales office, although that was “shut down in 2019 on data security concerns.”
But still, they got some of that sweet, sweet Chinese money. And by some, I mean a lot.
Twitter is making “hundreds of millions of dollars a year” from Chinese clients.
Which makes China “one of Twitter’s largest non-U.S. revenue streams.”
Just as a little side note, if Twitter, which has a much smaller user base than
Facebook or YouTube, is making hundreds of millions of dollars a year from China,
just imagine how much Meta and Google are making.
Or don’t imagine, if you want to sleep better at night.
What kind of ads are Chinese entities running on Twitter?
Well, in 2019, Twitter was able to cash in on Chinese state-run
media ads criticizing the Hong Kong protests.
Later in 2019, under pressure, Twitter announced it would ban state-controlled media advertising.
But then Twitter also made a bunch of exceptions, because obviously they still wanted the money.
State-run media could still advertise if they claim to
be dedicated to entertainment, sports, and travel.
Chinese authorities kept buying Twitter ads for things like tourism,
even though there’s been virtually no tourism to
China since the pandemic began because of how strict their border controls are.
But you get the sense that these ads aren’t really about tourism.
Like this one about visiting Wuhan, the epicenter of the Covid outbreak.
This tweet was part of an almost $300,000 Chinese government ad buy.
Then in March 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Twitter said they
would eliminate even those exceptions. No state-run media advertising at all!
Except...a Reuters investigation showed that Twitter *continued*
to allow Chinese government and state-run media ads even after the ban.
They documented an ad on visiting Shaanxi that was running this month,
but which has been apparently deleted since the report was published.
And here’s the problem with letting Chinese entities advertise on Twitter.
It actually gives those Chinese entities access to user data.
One cybersecurity researcher speculated that “users could be at risk through Custom Audiences,
a tool that allows advertisers on the platform to review information about their target audiences.”
This is a very real danger, since the Chinese regime has
sent at least 50 Chinese Twitter users to prison for their posts.
Which sounds bad. But on the bright side: hundreds of millions of dollars!
So what if some political dissidents get disappeared?!
Now this Reuters investigation came out on the same day a Twitter whistleblower
testified in a Senate hearing about these security issues and more.
And it gets scarier—after the break.
Welcome back.
Unless YouTube decides to demonetize and age-restrict this video. Not that
a social media platform would be doing dirty business with China. Anyways…
The extent of Chinese influence in Twitter is
coming to light thanks to a Reuters investigation...
and to former Twitter employee Peiter
Zatko who blew the whistle at a US Senate hearing earlier this month.
Zatko claims, “Twitter executives opted to allow Twitter to become more dependent upon revenue
coming from Chinese entities even though the Twitter service is blocked in China.”
And as I said, these ads also gave the Chinese government a type of
access that put Twitter users in China at risk.
According to Zatko’s whistleblower report, “Twitter executives knew that accepting
Chinese money risked endangering users in China… Twitter executives understood this
constituted a major ethical compromise. Mr. Zatko was told that Twitter was too
dependent upon the revenue stream at this point to do anything other than increase it.”
Here’s what he said during the Senate hearing.
Grassley: While at Twitter,
you raised concerns with their policy regarding Chinese advertisement. What was Twitter’s
response? Zatko:
In a nutshell, it was that we’re already in bed, it would be problematic if we lost that
revenue stream, so figure out a way to make people comfortable with it.
In other words, we’re already in bed with that smoking hot girl we know is
an assassin. Too late to get out now. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
Zatko also claimed that Twitter didn’t actually know what kind of data they were giving China.
They didn’t know what people they were putting at risk, or what information they
were even giving to the government, which made me concerned that they hadn’t thought
through the problem in the first place, that they were putting their users at risk for.
And it gets worse.
In his 84-page whistleblower complaint to US officials,
Zatko alleged Twitter is highly vulnerable to abuse by foreign intelligence agents.
According to the FBI, Twitter had actually employed at least one Chinese agent.
“The corporate security [and] physical security team had been contacted and
told there was at least one agent of the [Ministry of State Security],
which is one of China’s intelligence services, on the payroll inside Twitter.”
Twitter allegedly has problems with even identifying infiltration
by foreign agents or its own employees.
“When we did know of a person inside, acting on behalf of a
foreign interest as an unregistered agent, it was extremely difficult to track the people.
There was a lack of logging and an ability to see what they were doing,
what information was being accessed, or to contain their activities, let alone set steps
for remediation and possible reconstitution of any damage. They simply lacked the fundamental
abilities to hunt for foreign intelligence agencies and expel them on their own.”
Twitter seems to also lack motivation to root out foreign agents.
Zatko brought up a conversation he had with an executive when he said,
“‘I am confident that we have a foreign agent,’ and their response was, ‘Well,
since we already have one, what does it matter if we have more?”
Real smart, Twitter. That’s like saying,
“Since we already have one assassin in the bedroom, what does it matter if we have more?”
According to Zatko, around half of Twitter’s employees have access
to users’ data like phone numbers, IP addresses, emails, the devices they use,
their locations and other identifying information. This would be easy pickings for foreign agents.
In other words, this agent from the Chinese Ministry of State Security
could have access to the phone numbers and locations of users inside China—which
is even more than what Chinese advertisers get.
But it’s not just user data that’s useful for foreign governments like China.
Having agents embedded inside Twitter can help the Chinese regime learn what
Twitter’s future plans are, like whether it’s willing to make concessions to Chinese demands.
This could in turn help China calibrate different types of political pressure to get what it wants.
Zatko blames Twitter’s leadership for being incompetent and motivated by profit over safety.
A Twitter spokesperson shot back with a sort of blanket denial. They said the hearing
"only confirms that Mr. Zatko's allegations are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies."
How are the allegations inconsistent and inaccurate? They didn’t give specifics on that.
But I wouldn’t put it past Twitter to allow Chinese influence in.
After all, Twitter hired Kathy Chen as managing director for Greater China in 2016.
Not a good choice if you wanted to avoid foreign infiltration.
“Chen previously spent seven years researching missile defense at the
People’s Liberation Army and also served as CEO of a joint venture from China’s
Ministry of Public Security that specialized in security and, potentially, surveillance.”
So in summary, Twitter took hundreds of millions of dollars from Chinese
ads. Those ads put Chinese users at risk. Then Twitter officially banned Chinese ads,
but in reality continued to show them. And Twitter also hired at least one Chinese spy,
who likely had access to granular user data, but Twitter decided it was no big deal.
I can only wonder what YouTube and Google are doing.
I’m sure Elon Musk, is enjoying the show.
And this episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
Because if you’re tired of being under constant surveillance,
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.