HONG KONG — When the Twitter account of a Chinese language ambassador on Wednesday “favored” a tweet of an X-rated video involving using toes, a livid assertion from the Chinese language Embassy blamed “anti-China parts” and demanded that Twitter launch an investigation.
The gesture by the envoy, Liu Xiaoming, the ambassador to Britain, created a storm on social media, with many debating whether or not it had been an accident or if his account had been hacked.
The account has a historical past of wierd likes. It has continuously favored its personal tweets. It has even favored criticism of China itself. Proof means that Mr. Liu could also be a tech-unsavvy boomer struggling to grasp a platform that’s banned in his personal nation.
However the episode threatened to grow to be an embarrassing marker within the tenure of a number one voice amongst China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats.
Because the controversy boiled over, the ambassador’s account shortly scrubbed all however two of the handfuls of likes it had amassed over the previous 12 months, together with the one for the video.
A Twitter consultant declined to touch upon Thursday about China’s demand for an investigation.
The tabloids in Britain — whose diplomatic ties with China have grown extra strained over the national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong, a former British colony — instantly seized on the Twitter storm.
The Solar tabloid screamed that the “Firebrand Chinese language Ambassador” had “PUT HIS FOOT IN IT.”
Mr. Liu, 64, one in every of China’s most high-profile diplomats, has served because the ambassador to Britain since 2009. He continuously seems on tv attacking China’s critics and batting away criticism of his nation’s crackdown on democracy advocates in Hong Kong and its mass incarceration of Uighurs within the Xinjiang area.
On a BBC program in July, he was proven drone video, apparently of prisoners in Xinjiang being led onto a prepare. When requested what was occurring, he struggled to reply, then replied, “Xinjiang is thought to be probably the most stunning place.” He later prompt that the video might be faux.
Mr. Liu joined Twitter final 12 months after different Chinese language diplomats had amassed giant followings on the location. He shortly adopted the aggressive tone of a few of his colleagues, who’ve been nicknamed “Wolf Warriors” after the favored Chinese language movie sequence. In lower than a 12 months, his following grew to greater than 85,000.
He has used Twitter to attack Adrian Zenz, a scholar who has researched the Xinjiang crackdown. He has accused external forces of fomenting the protest motion in Hong Kong final 12 months. He has praised China’s coronavirus response and defended Huawei, the embattled Chinese language tech firm.
However from the time he joined the social media platform, the like operate has proved notably troublesome.
Quickly after his account posted an introductory message in October (“Hiya Everybody! I’m Liu Xiaoming…”) his account favored a reply {that a} Chinese language ambassador wouldn’t usually approve: “Hail China dictatorship man! Hail totalitarianism!”
The unfastened likes didn’t seem to grow to be a severe difficulty till Wednesday, when Mr. Liu’s account attained infamy.
“WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS IF EATING,” Luke de Pulford, a member of the British Conservative Social gathering’s Human Rights Fee, wrote in a tweet drawing consideration to Mr. Liu’s obvious endorsement of the video. “Felt a bit imply for this,” Mr. de Pulford added. “However then I remembered the #Uyghur focus camps and #HongKong and shortly acquired over it.”
The Chinese language Embassy shortly got here to Mr. Liu’s protection, blaming unnamed parts who it stated had “viciously attacked Ambassador Liu Xiaoming’s Twitter account and employed despicable strategies to deceive the general public.”
“The Embassy has reported this to Twitter firm and urged the latter to make thorough investigations and deal with this matter significantly,” the assertion continued. “The Embassy reserves the proper to take additional actions and hope that the general public is not going to imagine or unfold such hearsay.”
Mr. Liu has in a roundabout way addressed the controversy. However he tweeted an obscure maxim that appeared to declare his innocence: “A superb anvil doesn’t concern the hammer.”
