China has absolutely no idea how to run a Twitter network.
In this data-driven analysis of accounts Twitter has taken down over the past two years, I show just how poorly the CCP understands how to convey its message abroad.
A THREAD 1/23 https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/chinas-hopeless-twitter-influence

First off, no-one read the tweets this operation sent out. In contrast to the Russian influence ops accounts, which regularly rack up 10k+ likes, the Chinese ones have been completely ignored by the broader public.

Each dot=tweet, Y-axis is retweets, X-axis is likes. 2/23

The only tweets over 100 likes were porn-related. A PG-13 sample:
3/23

Even during the height of the 2019 HK unrest, when the largest protests took place on the weekends, this operation was slacking on Saturday and Sunday
4/23

Amusing how their tweets line up directly with a 9-5 Beijing workday...
5/23

I made an interactive map where you can explore the tweets over time and by reported location

https://kepler.gl/demo/map?mapUrl=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/h454qg7rsvev0ri/keplergl_ezk643w.json only works on desktop
6/23

What were these accounts talking about? Almost exclusively domestic Chinese issues and the Taiwanese presidential election.

Thanks to @AsiaPolicy for the chart
7/23

Typical English-language post:
"Justice may be late, but it will not be absent. The dream of "Hong Kong independence" will eventually be in vain."
8/23

There's also just some weird stuff.
"After watching for over fifteen minutes, I don't think that RuPaul's Drag Race has anything to do with automobiles"

Also, lots of random snippets from 19th Century English literature like Bram Stoker and Charlotte Bronte
9/23

The user descriptions were consistently hilarious:

"Environmentalist, Achiever, Grammar Nazi, Golf Junky, Pantless Jogger. Can you blow my whistle?"

"Dollar Store Owner, Saviour of Mankind, Citizen"

"Upholsterer, Sawmill or timber yard worker, Heavy and Tractor Trailer"
10/23

"Travelaholic. Beer fanatic. Unable to type with boxing gloves on. Food specialist. Bacon buff. Evil introvert."

"Zombie guru. Writer. Communicator. Amateur bacon expert. Typical gamer. Organizer."
11/23

I feel for whoever is the underpaid employee working to write these English language tweets.
When they were putting in long hours studying English for the gaokao, they probably hoped to travel the world and read Shakespeare...
12/23

Instead, they're now stuck in a low-paying job writing tweets for a totally ineffective information operations effort. I hope that they were able to convince their bosses that reading Charlotte Bronte and watching Ru Paul while on the clock was work-appropriate.
13/23

The Chinese language content is also piss-poor. For instance, the Cantonese writing seemed created through translation software.

This operation hired English speakers but couldn’t bother finding a handful of the sixty million Cantonese speakers on the mainland.
14/23

Just look at these Guo Wengui memes...they're really mailing it in here
15/23

I have mixed feelings putting this whole operation on blast. If whoever was running this were smart, they’d take to heart the critiques of western observers, shed the current counterproductive KPIs and to learn best practices from the Russians.
16/23

I wonder whether, particularly for English-language content, if the talent is there in mainland China for this sort of thing. To do convincing information operations, you really need to have spent a lot of time ingesting content in the country you’re supposed to be producing for.

Chinese nationals I met with who had strong English didn’t necessarily spend a ton of time on Reddit and Twitter, but rather just watched a whole lot of 2 Broke Girls.
18/23

If Beida kids aren’t spending their free time on Twitter, I can’t imagine whoever’s getting paid 2000 rmb a month for this position is either. And kids who actually studied in the west are far too wealthy to take a job like this.
19/23

As @BadChinaTake speculated, “I think the semblance of an electoral system also means your average Russian has a strong grasp of partisanship/party ID and how that can be exploited, which is key.”
20/23

My sense is that instead of being able to freely riff on the news of the day, they seem to have to stick closely to talking points much like state media does.
21/23

Instead, as @THoCPodcastAlt says, “Chinese ‘infiltrationists’ are still largely stuck in a particular sloganeering-gear which works great at home but rings so utterly false abroad.”
22/23

What could change the game? The CCP is starting to create sponsored content with YouTubers and @OpenAI 's GPT-3 or similar technologies could allow a few folks skilled in the ways of Twitter to dramatically scale up their impact.
23/23

I had a ton of help in making my first ever data project possible. Thanks @dataquestio , @matplotlib , @WenruiDonovanWu , @nickolas_clarke, and many others on the python side of things.
I know the graphs aren't the prettiest, but I did my best

Research help from @ayumi_teraoka , @clichfield1 and many others not on twitter