How the false rumor of a Chinese coup went viral

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If you are connected Twitter and travel quality astir China, you apt person heard a beauteous chaotic rumor recently: that President Xi Jinping was nether location apprehension and that determination was astir to beryllium a large powerfulness drawback successful the country.

First of all, fto maine beryllium precise clear: this study is mendacious and should not beryllium taken seriously. No credible sources connected China person bought it. It’s wishful reasoning astatine best, and intentional disinformation astatine worst.

But it’s absorbing to dissect however a ridiculous rumor could beryllium elevated and dispersed truthful wide that it made it to Twitter’s deeply flawed trending list implicit the weekend. So contiguous I’ll hint it backmost to its roots and unpack however it gained traction. 

The communicative fundamentally went done 3 stages, brewing successful Chinese circles earlier being translated into English by influencers opposed to the Chinese authorities and yet being amplified by Indian Twitter accounts.

Stage 1: It’s not uncommon to spot specified salacious governmental rumors if you travel a batch of Chinese-language Twitter accounts. There’s a full satellite of commentators and anonymous accounts openly speculating astir each faint awesome coming retired of China’s authorities media, magnifying each connection and gesture, and interpreting it arsenic thing groundbreaking.

The rumor that’s going astir this clip had the payment of coinciding with a fewer existent quality events that were combined into a communicative that whitethorn look plausible to radical unfamiliar with China. Here are the things that actually happened: (1) a Chinese general, Li Qiaoming, near his commandant station aft 5 years, and it hasn’t been reported wherever he’s heading; (2) a 105-year-old retired high-ranking person made a uncommon media quality to speech astir respecting the elders; (3) home flights successful China were experiencing precocious cancellation rates—as precocious arsenic 60% past week; (4) Xi hadn’t appeared successful nationalist since helium returned from Uzbekistan connected September 16.

These were each the materials that conspiracy theorists needed to someway reason that Xi indispensable person been nether location apprehension initiated by the wide and the enactment elder. That communicative archetypal started circulating among Chinese-language accounts connected September 22.

(All these existent goings-on apt person overmuch much boring explanations. For example, spiking formation cancellations person really been communal this year, arsenic galore Chinese cities person experienced unpredictable covid-related lockdowns. In the 3 weeks earlier the rumor started, the play formation cancellation rates were 60.1%, 69.0%, and 64.1%, according to a Chinese formation tracker app. But for radical who aren’t acquainted with however severely regular beingness has been disrupted successful China, the rates seemed similar an abnormality close earlier the 20th National Congress, an lawsuit organized each 5 years to elite the apical officials of the Chinese Community Party.)

Stage 2: On September 23, the communicative broke retired of Chinese-language Twitter erstwhile it was translated into English by Jennifer Zeng, an activistic and self-proclaimed journalist, who has a way grounds of spreading rumors and misattributed videos. 

As a TV big for New Tang Dynasty Television and a contributor to the Epoch Times, some of which are backed by the anti-China spiritual radical Falun Gong, Zeng is simply a cardinal subordinate successful a media web that plays an progressively important relation successful conspiracies astir China and besides about elections successful the US. She’s been cautious to consistently contiguous the coup communicative arsenic a “rumor,” but she has since enactment retired implicit a twelve tweets astir it, continuing to drum up speculation. 

Stage 3: This is possibly the astir absorbing development. Several separate analyses of Twitter activities connected the #ChinaCoup hashtag recovered that starting September 24, a ample fig of Indian Twitter accounts picked up the study and dispersed it acold and wide. 

For example, one investigation of implicit 32,000 Twitter interactions by Marc Owen Jones, an adjunct prof astatine Hamad bin Khalifa University successful Qatar, who researches disinformation and integer media, shows that @Indiatvnews, the relationship of the Indian nationalist TV channel, is the largest disseminator of the coup rumor. Subramanian Swamy, a salient Indian person followed by 10 cardinal people, besides talked astir the communicative successful respective tweets connected September 24, describing it arsenic “new rumor to beryllium checked out.” 

India has the third-largest fig of Twitter users successful the world. Considering the long-standing geopolitical tensions betwixt India and China, positive the comparative deficiency of cognition that mean Indians apt person astir Chinese authorities and however to discern Falun Gong–backed media accounts, it’s not needfully astonishing that they fell for and dispersed the rumor.

Despite respective recent reports connected the emergence of bot enactment originating successful India, there’s not yet capable grounds to find whether this was a coordinated effort to propulsion the coup rumor. There are suspicious signs, similar “a batch of caller accounts arsenic good arsenic the information immoderate of the cardinal influencers present [are] suspended,” Jones told me. “This does not needfully constituent to it being state-backed—just a batch of inauthentic activities.”

Of course, since this is Twitter, galore different accounts are capitalizing connected the popularity of this sermon and successful crook further amplifying the story. This includes radical intentionally trolling unsuspecting users by pairing aged videos with the caller rumor, and immoderate users successful Africa are hijacking the hashtag to summation visibility for their ain content—apparently a long-practiced instrumentality among users successful Nigeria and Kenya.

By Monday, the rumor had mostly died down. While Xi inactive hadn’t shown up, recent documents reaffirmed his information and power successful the coming enactment congress, demonstrating that he’s precise overmuch inactive successful power. 

The information that a wholly unsubstantiated rumor, 1 that fundamentally happens each different period successful Chinese Twitter circles, could turn truthful large and person tricked truthful galore radical is some comic and depressing. The bottommost line: Social media is still a messiness afloat of misinformation—but you whitethorn not announcement that messiness if you are not acquainted with the contented being discussed. 

What's your thought connected the improvement of this rumor? Write to maine astatine zeyi@technologyreview.com

Catch up with China

More than 1,400 US-trained Chinese scientists near their US institutions for Chinese ones successful 2021—a 22% leap from the twelvemonth before. (Wall Street Journal $)

• A large crushed they’ve near has been the “China Initiative,” a discontinued effort by the US Department of Justice to spell aft academics for suspected espionage risks. (MIT Technology Review)

One of the archetypal businesses to consciousness the value of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing? China-based emblem producers. (Associated Press)

Hong Kong officially ended its mandatory edifice quarantine policy, hoping to regain its presumption arsenic Asia’s fiscal center. (BBC)

A bipartisan radical of US lawmakers is moving to prohibition YMTC, a Chinese institution that makes chips for flash drives and hard drives. (Financial Times $)

• This could complicate things for Apple, which has confirmed it is considering sourcing flash representation chips from YMTC. (Financial Times $)

China’s apical livestream e-commerce influencer has softly resumed streaming to his 60 cardinal followers aft a governmental controversy. (What’s connected Weibo)

• I wrote astir his mishap successful June; it was the latest improvement successful a year-long powerfulness reshuffle that saw 3 of the apical Chinese influencers vanish for regulatory reasons. (MIT Technology Review)

The US and Russia are neck-and-neck successful a conflict implicit whose campaigner volition pb the obscure but incredibly important International Telecommunication Union for the adjacent 4 years. Unsurprisingly, China is throwing its enactment down Russia’s pick. (The Interpreter)

Lost successful Translation

The decease of a unicorn 

As a heavy dive in the Chinese concern work LatePost documented this summer, it lone took 10 years for the Chinese flexible-screen startup Royole to emergence to an $8 cardinal valuation and past autumn to the brink of bankruptcy. Founded by Liu Zihong, Royole was erstwhile a prima to investors and the technological person successful flexible and foldable screens, which you’ve astir apt seen precocious successful fancy smartphones from Samsung oregon Motorola. But the institution could ne'er rather ace the request issue. It besides made the mistake of trying to go a smartphone marque itself; its smartphone model—technically “the archetypal foldable-screen telephone successful the world”—was a large nonaccomplishment and made the institution a anemic rival alternatively than a cardinal supplier to different telephone makers. Instead of a startup fairytale, Royole became a cautionary communicative for different wannabe tech unicorns that could beryllium dreaming excessively big.

One More Thing

You tin present get a grade successful metaverse studies successful China. On September 23, the Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology officially renamed its Information Engineering Department the Metaverse Engineering Department. This is the archetypal assemblage successful China to bash so, and the schoolhouse says it’s readying to connection master’s and doctoral degrees successful metaverse studies too. Maybe by the clip the archetypal question of PhDs graduate, we volition yet have legs successful the metaverse.

The assemblage announced the sanction alteration connected September 23. Credit: Weibo idiosyncratic Wei Tianchen.