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Twitter Apologizes For Blocking Anti-China Govt. Accounts Ahead of Tiananmen Square Anniversary

The social media giant blocked a series of anti-government accounts ahead of the Tiananmen Square anniversary.

Twitter Inc. apologized on Sunday for suspending “a number of accounts” that were critical of the Chinese government ahead of the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, according to Reuters. The social networking giant said it had errantly blocked the accounts to try to combat content manipulation and had not blocked them at the request of the Chinese government. “Some of these were involved in commentary about China,” Twitter said in a statement. “These accounts were not mass reported by the Chinese authorities–this was a routine action on our part.” Twitter added that sometimes they “catch false positives or we make errors.”