Twitter on Monday flagged as “sensitive” — but not fake — a phony image of an Australian soldier beheading an Afghan child shared by a Chinese Communist Party official, after being confronted by The Post.
The image of a grinning Australian soldier pressing a bloody knife to a child’s throat was posted Sunday by bombastic Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian, sparking an outcry in Australia.
Zhao captioned the photo: “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable,” and then pinned the tweet to the top of his feed.
Shortly after the posting, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an apology and said China should be “utterly ashamed” for the “repugnant” photo.
Morrison said the Australian government asked Twitter to remove the post, but it was not flagged as “sensitive” until hours later. It’s unclear why the photo was not annotated as “manipulated media” — a label applied to tweets from President Trump, including a satirical video showing CNN coverage of a “racist baby.”
A Twitter spokesperson told The Post, “The image contained within the Tweet in question has been marked as sensitive media. For more information on these policies and how to control your individual media settings on Twitter, see here.”
Viewers must now click through a warning message that says, “The following media includes potentially sensitive content.”
Zhao is known as an aggressive and often inaccurate spokesman for China’s Communist government. In March, he falsely claimed on Twitter that “[i]t might be US army who brought the [COVID-19] epidemic to Wuhan.” That tweet received a fact-check box in May following prodding from The Post, after Trump tweets saying that mail-in ballots are vulnerable to fraud were fact-checked.
A recent Australian government report found that the nation’s troops committed at least 39 unlawful killings during the long-running war in Afghanistan.
Twitter is blocked in China.
Republicans in Congress this year rallied behind modifying Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a foundational internet liability shield for third-party content after Twitter blocked distribution of The Post’s reporting in October on a Hunter Biden hard drive implicating his father, Joe Biden, in business relationships in China and Ukraine. Republicans said protections should not apply if internet platforms act as publishers rather than as neutral forums. President-elect Biden and many Democrats also want to revise or eliminate the law.