Twitter closes China’s US embassy on Uighur tweet

Twitter said it had shut down the account of the Chinese embassy in the United States over a tweet about Uighur women violating anti-dehumanization policies.

The Chinese embassy account, @ChineseEmbinUS, tweeted this month that Uighur women have been exempted from ‘baby machines’ by government policy. The tweet cited a study reported by state-run China Daily, Reuters reported.

“We took action on the Tweet … because we violated our policy against dehumanisation, where it reads: We prohibit the dehumanisation of a group of people on the basis of their religion, caste, age, disability, serious illness, national origin “Race, or ethnicity,” a Twitter spokesman told CNBC in a statement.

According to the United Nations, the United States and the United Kingdom, ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority living in western China, have been oppressed by the Chinese government for years.

China has repeatedly denied Uighur abuse, most recently on Wednesday when its foreign ministry reacted angrily to former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s characterization of Uighur policy as ‘genocide’.

Twitter has removed the tweet and replaced it with a label saying it is no longer available.

The social media giant’s Terms of service determined that tweets that violate its policies are hidden, and that the accounts are closed, or that some features are temporarily restricted. Users should manually delete the tweets in question if they want the account to be fully restored.

The bill for the Chinese embassy in the US last tweeted on January 9th.

The Chinese embassy in the US did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comments sent outside normal business hours.

Earlier this month, Twitter President Donald Trump’s account was permanently suspended. The company said the decision was made “because of the risk of further incitement to violence.”

Twitter – along with Facebook and Google – are banned in China.