【看英文中國郵報學英文】知名社交媒體推特（ Twitter ）及臉書（ Facebook ），19 日接連宣佈要封鎖其平台上的大量賬號，原因是這些賬號散播關於香港示威的假消息，而且應是由北京當局主導。

Twitter and Facebook announced on Aug. 19 that they have suspended numerous accounts from mainland China, which have been accused of spreading disinformation to undermine pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

推特透過官網證實，已刪除 936 個大陸賬號，因其意圖在香港製造政治分歧，包括破壞當地抗議運動的合法性。

Twitter has deleted 936 accounts from mainland China after confirming that these accounts were deliberately propagating false information to “sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground.”

推特還強調，根據他們的深入調查，有可靠證據證明，這是一個官方組織的行動。此外，由於推特在大陸是被禁止使用的，所以這些帳號大多利用 VPN 翻牆，或是從大陸特定未被禁止的 IP 進入推特，發布內容也違法推特的社群規範。

According to Twitter’s investigation, these accounts are part of a disinformation campaign backed by the Chinese government. Since Twitter is blocked in mainland China, these accounts were therefore accessing Twitter via VPN, or specific unblocked IP addresses originating from China. Content shared by these accounts are violating their regulations, Twitter said.

推特也提到，前述這些帳戶只是最活躍的代表，另外還有將近 20 萬個帳戶已經被主動停權。這些帳戶違反的規定包含垃圾郵件、協調性活動和假帳戶等等。

The above-mentioned 936 accounts were the most active accounts related to Chinese state-backed operation, according to Twitter. Even though, an additional 200,000 accounts, linked to the operation, have also been suspended due to violation of regulations with spamming, coordinated activities, fact accounts and so forth.

除了推特，臉書也移除了 7 個頁面、3 個群組和 5 個賬號，並說這些賬號同樣涉嫌散播關於香港的假新聞。其中有頁面有約 1 萬 5500 名粉絲，另有一個群組有 2200 個成員。

Besides Twitter, Facebook also took down seven pages, three groups and five accounts from the platform, as they were “involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior” targeting protests in Hong Kong. Among all, one page had 15,500 fans, and one group had with 2,200 members.

臉書的聲明還寫道，儘管這些用戶試圖隱藏身份，但「我們的調查發現其與中國政府相關個人之間的關聯。」並表示臉書一直致力於檢測和阻止這類活動，因為不希望其服務被用來操縱人。臉書還表示，移除這些頁面與賬號，並非由於它們發佈的內容，而是它們背後的運作行為。

Facebook’s published statement wrote that “although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the Chinese government.”

Facebook said they will continue the work of detecting and stopping this type of misleading activity, as it does not want the platform to be used for manipulation. They added that the takedown is not because of the posted content but due to the operation behavior and intention.