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WSJ: How One Tweet Turned Pro-China Trolls Against the NBA

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by basso, Oct 17, 2019.

  1. basso

    basso Contributing Member
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    LeBron James wasn’t the only Twitter user who thought Daryl Morey’s tweet supporting Hong Kong’s protesters was misinformed. There was a whole army of pro-China troll accounts that happened to agree.

    A review of nearly 170,000 tweets, plus analysis from expert information warfare researchers, shows that Morey was the target of what appears to be a coordinated harassment campaign after his tweet on Oct. 4 set off an international furor and threatened the NBA’s future in the world’s most populous country.

    In the 12 hours immediately after Morey’s tweet, the Houston Rockets general manager’s account was flooded with comments from pro-Chinese-government accounts that mentioned him more than 16,000 times, according to an analysis by Ben Nimmo, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

    “It looks like there were humans at the keyboard for many of these posts,” Nimmo said. “This wasn’t primarily a bot swarm. It was a troll mob. Which is a lot harder to deal with.”

    The Wall Street Journal’s analysis was based on 168,907 tweets at Morey between Oct. 4 and Oct. 10 captured by Clemson University researchers Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren.

    It shows that 22% came from accounts with 0 followers at some point last week and 50% were from accounts with fewer than 13 followers. There were 4,855 total users in all who had never tweeted until they replied to Morey, and 3,677 accounts didn’t exist until his tweet.

    “I’m not saying this is a state-affiliated operation,” Linvill said. “But I’ve only seen so many brand-new accounts used at one time when it was a state-affiliated operation.”


    Troll mobs can involve orchestrated activity by a group of people who run accounts—and often many accounts. Sometimes they also operate armies of coordinated accounts to supplement their messaging.

    At the peak of the troll activity in response to Morey’s tweet, which supported the protesters demonstrating against China’s crackdown on the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, the notifications on Morey’s phone appeared at a rate of nearly two per second. More than 4,700 of the replies that swarmed his account included the phrase “NMSL,” which is a Chinese acronym meaning “your mother is dead.” Some of those tweets were accompanied by heart emojis.

    “This is a classic intimidation tactic: mass-posting at someone’s account to scream them into silence,” Nimmo said.

    Morey deleted his tweet in less than an hour after it had become clear that he’d stoked China’s wrath. But nearly 36 hours later, the powerful autocracy unleashed a delayed wave of economic pressure directed at the Rockets and the NBA. The pro-China trolls intensified their efforts.

    Follower counts of users tweeting at MoreySource: WSJ analysis of tweets from Oct. 3-10,collected by Clemson University researchers DarrenLinvill and Patrick Warren
    0 followers1-1314-50More than500%102030400 followersx22.4%
    China’s state-run institutions suspended ties with the Rockets on Oct. 6, when Morey returned to Twitter to say he didn’t intend to cause offense. That’s also when the replies to Morey spiked. There were nearly four times as many tweets in the five hours after Morey’s response than in the five hours after his original tweet.

    The height of the activity came when most of the U.S. was sleeping and China was bustling. The six hours between 10 p.m. ET on Oct. 6 and 4 a.m. ET produced 30,695 tweets mentioning Morey, or 18% of the total.


    Twitter is banned in China, but people can still access the service using a virtual private network, or VPN, which encrypts and reroutes internet traffic. In the past, some accounts have accessed the platform from specific unblocked IP addresses originating in mainland China, Twitter has said.

    When it comes to information warfare, China tends to be defensive and engage on issues relating to sovereignty, according to the researchers, while a country like Russia is more aggressive and inflames online discussions of polarizing topics such as NFL quarterbacks kneeling during the national anthem. “They don’t care about Colin Kaepernick,” Linvill said. “They just want you to talk about Colin Kaepernick.”

    The objective in this troll attack was likely to manipulate the conversation about the Hong Kong protests, the Clemson researchers said. Of the accounts targeting Morey tweeting for the first time, a high percentage espoused pro-China, anti-Hong Kong propaganda, which defied the pro-Hong Kong rhetoric found in the majority of accounts they analyzed. That suggests it was a concerted effort to make the discourse appear balanced—even if the organic discussion was lopsided against Beijing’s interests.

    China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

    Twitter first identified China as a source of a disinformation campaign in August, when the company suspended accounts the company believed to be part of a Chinese effort to undermine antigovernment protests in Hong Kong. In that instance, Twitter took down 936 accounts linked to a “significant state-backed information operation” originating in China.

    The company has taken action against some of the most egregious violations of Twitter rules since Morey’s first tweet. One account called “Support the division of the United States,” which followed zero users and had zero followers, tweeted at Morey an image of the World Trade Center crumbling on Sept. 11, 2001. The account has since been suspended.


    But of the 100 accounts that tweeted the most after starting with zero followers, 6% have been restricted, suspended or no longer exist, according to the Journal’s analysis.

    “Coordinated activity and other forms of platform manipulation have no place on our service,” a spokesman for Twitter said. “We will take enforcement action on any accounts that are displaying these behaviors.”

    Linvill and Warren’s analysis found that many of the tweets that appear to be from trolls were repeated verbatim. This is another useful strategy that accelerates the workflow and helps avoid language issues if the operator of the account isn’t a native English speaker.

    One power user whose account remains online managed to tweet “HK is part of china. F—ing you, dmorey, idoit” 40 times on Oct. 5. This user then refined the message to “HK is part of china. ⁠—ing you, dmorey, idoit.you, mother F—er,” for six more tweets. It evolved again into “HK is part of china! F—ing morey!Idoit! We love rocket but we love china more! Dismiss Morey!” for 30 more tweets a few hours later.

    The types of tweets that mentioned Morey’s account were also revealing: 58% were replies, rather than retweets or quote tweets, according to the Journal’s analysis.

    “It’s a mob screaming at him,” Nimmo said, “not just about him.”

    There is no American sports league that has reaped the benefits of social media as much as the NBA. Now it’s feeling the consequences. Morey exercising his right to free speech resulted in what might be one of the most expensive tweets in history.

    The league is still dealing with the fallout of last week’s crisis. The NBA’s warm relations with Beijing turned frigid overnight. American politicians criticized the league’s response to the situation as it escalated. And none other than LeBron James called Morey’s tweet “misinformed.”


    Morey, a prolific tweeter when he hasn’t enraged a foreign superpower, has not tweeted since.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-on...against-the-nba-11571238943?mod=hp_lead_pos10
     
  2. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    I.D.O.I.T.

    heh heh
     
    NotInMyHouse and tinman like this.
  3. daywalker02

    daywalker02 Member

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    Pro governmental bots.
     
  4. xtruroyaltyx

    xtruroyaltyx Member

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    3 cheers for Dirrel!!!
     
  5. Toffeeone

    Toffeeone Member

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  6. Toffeeone

    Toffeeone Member

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    These are the innocent righteous people speaking out against violence done by these rioters.

    they were silenced by violence, are you still telling me you support these so called freedom???
     
  7. Jontro

    Jontro Member

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    wat does ja rule have to say about all of this?
     
  8. nemac

    nemac Member

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    Noone supports that bro
     
    vlaurelio likes this.
  9. TheRealAllpro

    TheRealAllpro Morey only fan

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    Irony of the situation is China’s over the top reaction caused even more attention on a subject they are trying to quiet.
     
    #9 TheRealAllpro, Oct 17, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2019
    Blurr#7, clutchdabear, Dgn1 and 6 others like this.
  10. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for fighting back when pro-Beijing thugs beats civillians and corrupted cops side with them.
     
  11. napalm06

    napalm06 Huge Flopping Fan

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    So bizarre. Interesting that Twitter is taking action though. But deleting accounts is just sticking your fingers in a broken dam.

    Tweeting an image of the September 11th attacks at Morey shows the caliber of social engineering that we are dealing with here.
     
    Nook likes this.
  12. MorningZippo

    MorningZippo Member

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    If people are brain-washed, can we call them bots?

    I’m thinking about making a twitter sentiment monitor that accounts for replies by reading level. The tech is already available, so it wouldn’t be hard to do, and it would be pretty effective against Chinese propaganda like the above, since China supporters rarely write above a 3rd grade level.
     
    kubli9 and Nook like this.
  13. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for defending themselves when pro-Beijing thugs time and time attack protestors and get away with it with the help of corrupted cops

    Hong Kong protest leader Jimmy Sham attacked by men wielding hammers

    [​IMG]
     
    clutchdabear, Nook and malakas like this.
  14. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for defending themselves when pro-Beijing thugs time and time attack protestors and get away with it with the help of corrupted cops

    26-year-old woman in critical condition after knife attack at Hong Kong ‘Lennon Wall’

    [​IMG]
     
    clutchdabear, Nook and malakas like this.
  15. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for defending themselves when corrupted cops made innocent people blind.

    Hong Kong protests: Indonesian journalist shot in face with police projectile will have permanent blindness in right eye

    [​IMG]
     
    clutchdabear, Nook and malakas like this.
  16. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for defending themselves when pro Beijing thugs stab them

     
    clutchdabear, Nook and malakas like this.
  17. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for defending themselves when pro Beijing thugs stab journalists

    Kevin Lau, ex-Ming Pao editor injured in savage chopper attack, stable after surgery
     
    clutchdabear, Nook and malakas like this.
  18. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    Can't blame people for defending themselves when pro Beijing thugs attack lawmakers

    Pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmaker Roy Kwong hospitalised after attack by three men in Tin Shui Wai car park
     
    clutchdabear, Nook and malakas like this.
  19. WNBA

    WNBA Member

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    smear campaign against Chinese people.
     
    heypartner likes this.
  20. meh

    meh Contributing Member

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    This just shows America is wrong about Chinese people not being able to use twitter. Clearly they can use twitter. They just don't want to and instead choose to let some select few people use twitter and speak for them. Think of it like a Republic version of Freedom of Speech. These twitter users who uniquely have the capability to bypass the Great Firewall are able to speak for the rest of China so everyone else can be productive in their lives instead of wasting time on internet reprimanding the despicable Daryl Morey and his horrible views.
     
    Sadboy likes this.

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