A tweet from the Chinese embassy in the US claiming that Uyghur Muslim women held in internment camps in the Xinjiang province of China had been “emancipated” and were “no longer baby-making machines” received severe backlash from many quarters. Subsequently, Twitter has removed the outrageous content.
On Thursday, the Chinese Embassy in the United States took to Twitter to share an article published in the China Daily, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, that claims that as China has eradicated “religious extremism” from the region.
The article further made some claims saying that Uyghur women have freely chosen to use birth control more, leading to a decline in birth rates in the region. It dismissed claims made by some Western scholars and politicians that China has engaged in forced sterilizations of Uighurs.
“Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines,” the tweet said. adding that the Uygur women are more confident and independent.
Social media outrage against Chinese Embassy tweets against Uyghurs
Following the tweet by Chinese embassy in US, a massive outrage erupted on social media condemning the treatment meted out to the Uyghur Muslims in China and also attacked China for proudly commenting upon the forced sterilisation they carried out on Uyghur women on the social media.
However, Twitter, instead of removing the hateful content at the first instance, rather categorically stated that a Chinese government tweet praising China’s treatment of its Uyghur ethnic minority did not violate its policy against hateful conduct.
It is a known fact that Twitter regularly takes down content citing violation of rules just like it did to President Trump’s account. Twitter’s rule against hateful conduct states that users “may not promote violence against any particular group” and also bans “the dehumanization of a group of people” based on their religion, race, or ethnicity.
As Twitter did not remove the content from its platform, several netizens took to Twitter to not only condemn China for its persecution of minority Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province but also attacked Twitter for not removing such hateful content on social media.
When genocide is shamelessly packaged as empowerment… pic.twitter.com/SsrZXfD538
— Dr. Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman504) January 7, 2021
The Chinese government is emancipating Uygur women according to itself. Well isn’t this great news.
— Yevgeniy Golovchenko (@Golovchenko_Yev) January 8, 2021
*Sarcasm may occur* pic.twitter.com/zVgyPhEf8j
Another user asked Twitter to at least categorise the content as manipulated and alert the users for the disputed claims.
Maybe Twitter should alert it’s users that some of the claims in this tweet are disputed. https://t.co/dz1kX2gdud
— Timothy B. Lee (@binarybits) January 8, 2021
it’s been two hours and this is still up pic.twitter.com/WSxMOTHm8s
— Bad China Takes (@BadChinaTake) January 7, 2021
After several social media users including wokes and Islamists tweeted, the micro-blogging site seems to have buckled under pressure and the content posted by the Chinese embassy against Uyghur Muslims in China.