Twitter said it locked the account of China’s embassy in the United States over a tweet about Uighur women that violated company policy against dehumanization.
The Chinese Embassy account, @ChineseEmbinUS, wrote on Twitter this month that Uighur women have been liberated by government policy from being “baby makingmachines.” The tweet quoted a study reported by state-run newspaper China Daily, Reuters reported.
Uighur Community In China
“We’ve taken action on the Tweet … for violating our policy against dehumanization, where it states: We prohibit the dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, caste, age, disability, serious disease, national origin, race, or ethnicity,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.
Ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority living in western China, have been under pressure from the Chinese government for years, according to the United Nations, the United States and the United Kingdom.
China has repeatedly denied the Uighurs’ mistreatment, most recently on Wednesday when the Foreign Ministry angrily responded to the former U.S. Secretary of State. Mike Pompeo describes Uighur’s policy as a “genocide.”
Twitter’s Action
Twitter has removed the tweet and labeled it out of reach (no longer available).
The social media giant’s terms of service state that tweets violate their privacy policies, and accounts are locked or some features are temporarily restricted. Users must manually delete the tweets in question if they want the account to be fully restored.
The account of the Chinese embassy in the United States last posted on Twitter on January 9th.
The Chinese embassy in the U.S. did not immediately respond to CNBC’s emailed request for comments sent outside regular office hours.
Earlier this month, Twitter permanently suspended the account of President Donald Trump. The company said the decision was made “because of the risk of escalating the violence.”
Twitter – along with Facebook and Google – are banned in China.
Synopsis
- Twitter said it locked the account of China’s embassy in the United States over a tweet about Uighur women that violated company policy against dehumanization.
- Reuters reported that the account, @ChineseEmbinUS, tweeted this month that Uighur women had been emancipated by government policy from being “baby making machines.”
