The Chinese embassy in the UK have called on Twitter to commence an investigation after the country ambassador’s official account liked a pornographic clip on the platform earlier this week.
The account liked a number of tweets which were then unliked. Among them is a 10 second clip tweeted by an adult-themed account with a number of posts which criticizes the Chinese Communist Party.
According to reports, the Chinese UK embassy believes that this was the handiwork of a hacker who had probably gained control of the ambassador’s account. However, celebrities and politicians have often blamed hackers when they’re caught up in embarrassing situations.
“Recently, some anti-China elements viciously attacked Ambassador Liu Xiaoming’s Twitter account and employed despicable methods to deceive the public,” China’s UK embassy said in a statement Wednesday. “The Embassy has reported this to Twitter company and urged the latter to make thorough investigations and handle this matter seriously. The Embassy reserves the right to take further actions and hope that the public will not believe or spread such rumour.”
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Twitter hasn’t made any comment about the event. The service is being blocked in mainland China even though some Chinese officials now use the platform to communicate with their audiences outside the country.
As for Liu, his account was created back in October and the alleged hack follows a message breach earlier this summer where hackers were able to gain control of high-profile Twitter users including the US presidential candidate Joe Biden and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk.
In China, both pornography and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party is routinely blocked by censors. So the fact that Liu had liked (allegedly) could lead him into serious issue with the government which could be seen as the claims of the account being hacked. But that could be the case as he had demanded a thorough investigation be carried out on the case.
Shortly after the embassy released its statement, the ambassador quote-tweeted it. He wrote, “A good anvil does not fear the hammer.”
Updated 9/9/2020 at 4:35PM ET: Twitter declined to comment.
