No Twitter ‘Fact Check’ Warning on Chinese Official’s Fake Photo of Australian Soldier Beheading Child
Twitter on Tuesday rejected Canberra’s calls to remove a Beijing official’s gruesome tweet targeting Australian troops, choosing instead to stand with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As Breitbart News reported, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has demanded Beijing apologize after a top CCP official posted an obviously contrived image on Twitter depicting an Australian soldier with his knife to a child’s throat, appearing to prepare to behead the victim.
Morrison described the post by the official Twitter account of Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian as an “outrageous and disgusting slur” at a virtual news conference in Canberra on Monday.
AFP reports Twitter said it had since marked the tweet as “sensitive,” but added comments on topical political issues or “foreign policy sabre-rattling” by official government accounts were generally not in violation of its rules.
Twitter is banned for most citizens in China and Beijing has for decades been accused of widespread human rights abuses.
Some Australian allies expressed concern over the tweet, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, with the support coming as Australia looks to strengthen its alliances in the Indo/Pacific region as a guard against Beijing’s increasingly strident diplomacy.