For fans of pro tennis, European soccer and British tabloids, the mysterious Twitter account had a lot to offer.

對於職業網球、歐洲足球和英國小報的粉絲來說，這個神秘的Twitter賬號為他們提供了各種各樣的東西。

Beginning last year, it retweeted news, most of it in English, about Roger Federer and the Premier League, and it shared juicy clickbait on Zsa Zsa, an English bulldog that won the 2018 World’s Ugliest Dog contest.

從去年開始，這個大部分用英文的賬號轉發過關於羅傑·費德勒(Roger Federer)和英超聯賽的新聞，還分享過有關一隻名叫Zsa Zsa的英國鬥牛犬使人感興趣的點擊誘餌，這隻鬥牛犬贏得了2018年“世界最丑狗”大賽的冠軍。

Then, suddenly, the account began posting, in Chinese, about a different obsession: politics in Hong Kong and mainland China.

然後，突然間，這個賬號開始用中文發布另一種連篇累牘的東西：香港和中國大陸的政治。

Tweets from @HKpoliticalnew

來自@HKpoliticalnew的推文

June 2018：Now Andy Murray’s out of Wimbledon, cheer on these young British hopefuls https://t.co/ct2kgTuEgU

2018年6月：現在安迪·穆雷(Andy Murray)已出局溫布爾登，為這些雄心勃勃的年輕英國人歡呼吧 https://t.co/ct2kgTuEgU

2019：Hong Kong independence is a dead end. But there are always people who are vying to go into the fire pit. Pathetic!

2019年：港獨只會是死路，但偏偏有班人爭住走入火坑，真可悲！

The United States is funding ‘Hong Kong independence’ and brainwashing deadbeat kids #spieseverywhere #colorrevolution #hongkong

美國資助“港獨”廢青洗腦#諜影重重#顏色革命#香港

By this summer, it had become a foot soldier in a covert campaign to shape people’s views about one of the world’s biggest political crises.

到今年夏天的時候，這個賬號已成為一場秘密行動不可或缺的部分，旨在塑造人們如何看待世界上最大的政治危機之一的看法。

The account, @HKpoliticalnew, and more than 200,000 other Twitter accounts were part of a sprawling Russian-style disinformation offensive from China, Twitter now says, the first time an American technology giant has attributed such a campaign to the Chinese government.

Twitter現在說，@HKpoliticalnew以及其他20多萬個Twitter賬號，是來自中國的俄羅斯式大規模虛假信息攻擊戰的一部分。這是美國的科技巨頭首次將此類攻擊歸咎於中國政府。

China has long deployed propaganda and censorship to subject its citizens to government-approved narratives. As the nation’s place in the world grows, Beijing has increasingly turned to internet platforms that it blocks within the country — including Twitter and Facebook — to advance its agenda across the rest of the planet.

長期以來，中國一直使用宣傳和審查措施使民眾只接受政府批準的敘事。隨着中國在世界上的地位不斷提高，北京已越來越多地求助於Twitter和Facebook等在國內被屏蔽的互聯網平台，推動它在全球其他地區的議程。

It has done so in part by setting up accounts on the platforms for its state-run news outlets, such as China Daily, to make a public case for its views. But that is quite different from using fake accounts to manipulate opinions surreptitiously or simply to sow confusion.

中國的部分做法是通過在這些平台上給國有新聞媒體、比如《中國日報》建賬號，來公開闡明自己的觀點。但這與使用虛假賬號暗中操縱觀點，或僅僅是製造混亂有很大的不同。

“The end goal is to control the conversation,” said Matt Schrader, a China analyst with the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund in Washington.

“最終目標是控制對話，”德國馬歇爾基金會(German Marshall Fund)中國問題分析師馬特·施拉德(Matt Schrader)說。

Twitter last month took down nearly 1,000 accounts that it said were part of a state-directed effort to undermine the antigovernment protests in Hong Kong. It also suspended 200,000 other accounts that it said were connected to the Chinese operation but not yet very active. Facebook and YouTube quickly followed suit. All three platforms are blocked in mainland China but not in Hong Kong.

Twitter上月刪除了近1000個賬號，稱它們是政府主導的努力的一部分，旨在破壞香港的反政府抗議活動。Twitter還暫停了另外20萬個賬號，稱這些賬號與中國的信息戰有關，但目前還不是很活躍。Facebook和YouTube很快也緊隨其後。這三個平台在中國大陸都被屏蔽，但在香港則沒有屏蔽。

The 3.6 million tweets that the accounts sent represented a campaign that was less sophisticated and more hastily assembled than the one Russia carried out during the 2016 United States presidential election, researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said in a report published this month.

澳大利亞戰略政策研究所(Australian Strategic Policy Institute)的研究人員在本月發表的一份報告中說，這些賬號已發了360萬條推文，其所代表的運動與俄羅斯在2016年美國總統大選期間發起的信息戰相比不太老練，也更倉促。

Instead of taking the time to cultivate plausible yet fake online personalities, the campaign’s operators appear to have simply bought accounts in the shadowy global marketplace for social media influence, where followers and retweets can be had for cheap.

這場運動的操作者沒有花時間去培養看似可信但虛假的網絡人物，而似乎是簡單地在一個神秘的全球市場上購買賬號，尋求獲取社交媒體影響力。在那個市場上，粉絲和轉發都可以低價買到。

The accounts posted in Indonesian, Arabic, Portuguese and other languages. They promoted hookup services, posted about Korean boy bands and retweeted messages about pop-punk music.

這些賬號用印尼語、阿拉伯語、葡萄牙語和其他語言發貼。它們推銷勾搭服務，發有關韓國男孩樂隊的帖子，轉發關於流行朋克音樂的信息。

THE NEW YORK TIMES

“As a Hong Kong person who loves Hong Kong, I really miss the Hong Kong of before, which was developed and ruled by law,” @derrickmcnabbx wrote in Chinese on June 15. The account’s location was described as “Georgia, USA.” Before this year, nearly all of its tweets were links to pornography.

“作為一名熱愛香港的香港人，我真是好懷念以前那個發達的法治香港，”@derrickmcnabbx在6月15日用中文寫道。該賬號的地址據稱是“美國喬治亞州”。今年之前，該賬號幾乎所有推文都是色情鏈接。

The “blunt-force” approach, the authors of the Australian report wrote, suggested that the operation was likely to have been a “rapid response to the unanticipated size and power of the Hong Kong protests rather than a campaign planned well in advance.”

上述澳大利亞報告的作者寫道，這種“鈍力”做法表明，此次行動可能是“對香港抗議活動的規模和力量做出的快速反應，而不是事先計劃好的行動”。

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said he had no knowledge of the matter when asked last month whether the government was behind the accounts that Twitter and Facebook took down.

中國外交部的一名發言人上月被問及政府是否是被Twitter和Facebook撤下賬號的幕後黑手時，他表示對此事一無所知。

In its announcement, Twitter said little about how it determined that the accounts it removed were state directed. The company said it routinely monitored for such campaigns but declined to comment further.

Twitter在聲明中幾乎未說它是如何確定被刪除賬號是受國家主導的。該公司表示它定期對這類活動進行檢查，但拒絕發表進一步的評論。

The Chinese government blocks Twitter’s service in mainland China, and yet some of the accounts were operated from unblocked Chinese internet addresses, the company said. Some of the activity was traced to addresses in Beijing, according to a person familiar with Twitter’s investigation who feared retaliation from the government and requested anonymity.

中國政府屏蔽了Twitter在中國大陸的服務，但Twitter稱，被刪賬號中有些是由未被屏蔽的中國互聯網地址操作的。據一位了解Twitter調查情況的人士稱，這些活動的一部分被追溯到北京的地址。這名人士因擔心遭到政府報復，要求不具名。

There are already some signs that Twitter has not halted the Chinese campaign entirely. Nick Monaco of Institute for the Future, a think tank in Palo Alto, Calif., identified 17 accounts that had strong similarities to those that Twitter took down but which remained active.

已經有一些跡象表明，Twitter並沒有完全停止中國的行動。加州帕洛阿爾托智庫未來研究所(Institute for the Future)的尼克·莫納科(Nick Monaco)發現了與Twitter關閉的賬號非常相似的17個賬號，它們仍然活躍。

Some of the accounts tweeted messages that matched, word for word, ones that Twitter had deleted. They used the same third-party software as many of the accounts Twitter had removed to post messages with similar themes, in what seemed to be a coordinated manner.

有些賬號發布的信息與Twitter刪除賬號上的信息一字不差。而且也使用了相同的第三方軟件，以一種似乎協調一致的方式發布類似主題的信息。

After The New York Times presented Mr. Monaco’s findings to Twitter last week, the company shut the accounts down but declined to say conclusively whether they had been part of the same state-backed network.

《紐約時報》上周將莫納科的調查結果提交給Twitter後，該公司關閉了這些賬號，但拒絕明確說明它們是否屬於同一個政府支持的網絡。

Many of the accounts originally identified by Twitter had spread pro-government messages during other public-relations crises for Beijing. Large numbers of such messages began appearing in 2017, after the exiled businessman Guo Wengui began accusing senior Chinese leaders of graft, which raises the question of why Twitter did not remove the accounts sooner.

Twitter最初確認的賬號中，許多曾在北京面臨其他公關危機期間傳播支持政府的信息。大量此類信息在2017年開始出現，也就是在流亡國外的商人郭文貴開始指控中國高層領導人腐敗之後，這引發了一個問題：為什麼Twitter沒有早點刪除這些賬號？

The closed accounts also targeted Chinese dissidents

被關閉的賬號也針對中國異見人士

Before the accounts focused on the Hong Kong protests, they smeared critics of the Chinese government, according to analyses by The Times and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

據時報和澳大利亞戰略政策研究所的分析，在這些賬號把注意力轉向香港抗議之前，它們曾抹黑中國政府的批評者。

Tweets about the Hong Kong protests and the extradition bill exploded after June 9, the day of the first big demonstration.

有關香港抗議活動和修訂《逃犯條例》的推文從6月9日起大量出現，那天發生了第一次大規模示威活動。

The favorite target was Guo Wengui, a businessman who accused top Chinese officials of corruption. The accounts attacked him continuously for more than two years.

這些賬號最喜歡攻擊的目標是商人郭文貴，他指控中國高層官員腐敗。這些賬號在兩年多的時間裡不斷地攻擊他。

Yang Jianli, an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, was accused of being a fraud.

這些賬號還指控楊建利欺詐，後者直言不諱地批評中國政府。

Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong bookseller who disappeared then resurfaced in police custody in China, was also targeted.

失蹤後在中國警方的羈押下重新露面的香港書商桂敏海也是攻擊目標。

@ksiushalapina73: Gui Minhai was taken off a train by Chinese police on Jan. 20, various foreign media outlets made a big fuss about it. Chinese law does not tolerate such criticism from the foreign media

@ksiushalapina73：桂敏海1月20號在火車上被中國警方帶走，境外各媒體組織藉此大釋炒作，中國法律豈容外媒指手畫腳

@valentinax5w1sw: Guo Wengui, as a wanted criminal, you have evaded taxes in China, forcibly taken your female employees as mistresses, used recordings to threaten business partners, wooed and corrupted government officials.

@valentinax5w1sw：郭文貴，作為一名通輯犯，你在大陸偷稅漏稅、強霸女員工、錄音要脅合作夥伴、拉攏腐蝕政府官員。

@Sawyer19Carole: So Yang Jianli spreads rumors everywhere, disguising himself as a victim, when in fact he is the one who wants to persecute others.

@Sawyer19Carole：原來楊建利四處散布謠言把自己偽裝成被迫害，其實是他自己想迫害別人。

During some of their tweet campaigns, the accounts posted primarily during the workweek, a sign that the accounts were run by employees working on the clock. For months, one account posted messages smearing Mr. Guo at 12 and 42 minutes past the hour, suggesting that the activity was automated.

在這些賬號的某些推文運動期間，它們主要是在工作日發帖子，表明這些賬號由打卡上班的人員操作。一個賬號有好幾個月都在整點過後的12分種和42分鐘發詆毀郭文貴的信息，表明發帖是自動進行的。

Some of the accounts appear to have been started by genuine users but were later hijacked.

有些賬號似乎是由真正的用戶創建的，但後來被劫持了。

The first four years of posts on one account, @emiliya_naum, read like those of an ordinary American teenager.

@emiliya_naum這個帳戶前四年的帖子，看起來跟一個普通的美國青少年沒什麼兩樣。

She tweeted longingly at @justinbieber and said she twerked in her room to celebrate Barack Obama’s 2012 election victory. She cataloged her moods and mused about her crushes.

她發推表達對賈斯汀·比伯(@justinbieber)的迷戀，還說她在房間裡跳電臀舞慶祝奧巴馬在2012年的大選中獲勝。她記錄下自己的喜怒哀樂，以及對愛慕對象的一些小心思。

“The guy I like and my best friend hate each other … #ThisIsntGood,” she wrote in 2012.

“我喜歡的那個人和我最好的朋友互相看不順眼……#這可不好，”她在2012年寫道。

Then, like many Twitter users, she let her account fall silent — until this summer, when she re-emerged as a cheerleader for Hong Kong law enforcement.

然後，像許多Twitter用戶一樣，她的賬戶停更了——直到今年夏天，她再次露面，成為了為香港執法部門打氣的拉拉隊隊員。

“Hong Kong police, way to go, we support you!” she tweeted, in Chinese. “We understand your hardships!”

“香港警察，好樣的，我們挺你！”她用中文發推，“你們的苦，我們都懂！”

It could not be determined whether @emiliya_naum was originally operated by a real person. No accounts with that name were found on Facebook, Instagram or other major social platforms.

無法確定這個賬號最初是否由真人操作。在Facebook、Instagram或其他主要社交平台上都沒有發現同名的賬戶。

By and large, the accounts that Twitter took down struggled to go viral with their pro-Beijing messages. Many of their most retweeted posts were links to pornography and animal videos.

總的來說，Twitter刪除的賬號中，那些支持北京立場的內容很難引起太大關注。它們轉發量最大的帖子都是色情和動物視頻的鏈接。

Elise Thomas, one of the authors of the Australian report, said that the low level of professionalism suggested that the campaign was not the work of the People’s Liberation Army or the Ministry of State Security, which have previously been linked to Chinese cyberespionage and information campaigns.

澳大利亞那份報告的作者之一埃莉斯·托馬斯(Elise Thomas)表示，專業度欠佳表明此次行動不是中國人民解放軍或國家安全部在背後操作。此前，這兩個部門曾與中國的網絡間諜活動和情報活動聯繫在一起。

“I would be surprised if the P.L.A. was responsible because I would expect they would be more competent than this,” Ms. Thomas said.

“如果是中國人民解放軍負責的，我會感到意外，因為在我眼裡它的能力不應該只是這一點，”托馬斯說。

Russia’s social media efforts ahead of the 2016 presidential election were cannier about finding and influencing audiences in the United States. The Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg company with Kremlin ties, tailored its trolling operations to sow maximum discord.

2016年總統大選之前，俄羅斯在社交媒體上找到並影響美國受眾方面更勝一籌。與克里姆林宮有關聯的聖彼得堡公司“互聯網研究機構”(Internet Research Agency)策動了相關擾亂行動，以將分化美國民眾的效果最大化。

Titus C. Chen, a professor who studies Chinese social media at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, said he believed that China had created its own analogues to the Internet Research Agency, though they operated far less openly.

台灣國立中山大學從事中國社交媒體研究的教授陳至潔表示，他相信中國已經成立了與俄羅斯“互聯網研究機構”類似的機構，但運作比較低調而已。

Turning spam bots into propaganda mouthpieces would represent a natural evolution of techniques that Beijing has long used at home.

將垃圾郵件機器人變成宣傳喉舌，代表着北京一直在國內使用的技術的自然演變。

For years, China has used armies of pseudonymous keyboard warriors to flood domestic social platforms and news sites with pro-government comments.

多年來，中國一直在使用匿名的鍵盤俠大軍，用支持政府的言論占領國內社交平台和新聞網站。

In 2013, the head of China’s propaganda department said that in Beijing alone, there were more than 2 million people working to “strengthen guidance of online opinion,” including by posting comments on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform.

2013年，中宣部部長表示，僅在北京，就有200多萬人在從事“加強網上輿論引導”工作，包括在中國類似Twitter的社交媒體平台微博上發表評論。

Samm Sacks, a China expert at New America, a Washington-based think tank, said the clumsiness of the Twitter operations showed that China was still “out of its depth in trying to shape the international narrative.”

總部設在華盛頓的智庫新美國(New America)的中國問題專家姍姆·薩克斯(Samm Sacks)表示，中國在Twitter上行動笨拙表明，它“在塑造國際敘事方面力有未逮”。

“What works inside China doesn’t work internationally,” she said. “I think China is probably working through that now.”

“在中國國內行得通的東西在國際上就未必，”她說。“我認為中國現在可能正在克服這個問題。”