China says Twitter should shut down accounts that besmirches its reputation

China on Friday said Twitter should shut down accounts that smear China if it wants to fight disinformation, arguing that the country is the biggest victim of disinformation.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters during a briefing that many platforms had much falsehood about China and that there was a need for Chinese voices with objective views.

Earlier, the US tech giant had deleted thousands of accounts praising China's response to COVID-19 and others which were linked to Hong Kong protests. These included 23,750 "highly engaged core" accounts and 150,000 "amplifier" accounts.

Also read: Twitter deletes thousands of accounts linked to China's COVID-19 spin, Hong Kong protests

"They were tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China, while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong," Twitter said.

Twitter had earlier deleted accounts during the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests in August last year and it took help of the same system to uncover the Chinese network.

The company said the network had "failed to achieve considerable traction" but was "involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities". The accounts have been placed in Twitter's archive.

Twitter is banned from China along with other US sites including Facebook, Google and YouTube.