People following Xinjiang related issues on Twitter recently may have seen a few tweets like this. On a hunch that Emma Stone might not be re-tweeting the Global Times’ denial of the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, @tomatospy and I took a closer look.

We found that the accounts obsessively sharing the Global Times article were part of what appears to be a massive spambot network in the making. We identified 375+ related accounts, many of which use the photos of random celebrities.

All of the accounts were created in 2019, but it's not clear who by or for what purpose. Only a relatively small proportion have tweeted on issues relating to China or Xinjiang. Many have barely been used other than what looks like a test tweet - 'Hello [own name]'

(There is something slightly creepy about the succession of different Alices saying hello to themselves)

In addition to sharing the Global Times article, the accounts also attacked the credibility of the New York Times...

... and they're definitely not fans of Mike Pompeo.

They've also amplified statements from the Chinese government on Xinjiang and engaged with Chinese diplomats' Twitter accounts...

... and boosted criticism of the #HongKong protests.

The TL;DR is that this is not a massive campaign, but it is a small and timely reminder that the types of information operations which our @ASPI_ICPC team recently analysed have not gone away, and are not limited to the #HKprotests. https://www.aspi.org.au/report/tweeting-through-great-firewall

#Xinjiang bots still going strong - meet Aaron and Connor.

"Great contributions to the global counter-terrorism"

'Cuisine's' interests include Xinjiang food, counter-terrorism and criticising World Uighur Congress president Dolkun Isa