Social media giants face the can Twitter they're saying that China has been spreading dis information on their platforms dis information that amplified messages. That betrayed that pro democracy protesters in Hong Kong. As violent and extreme and it caused Twitter and FaceBook to remove several of these China backed accounts I want to bring in Jeremy Kaplan who is editor in chief. Digital trends. Jeremy good to see you so Twitter said in a statement that based on there intensive investigations they have. Reliable evidence to support that it was a coordinated state backed operation how do they even begin to figure this out. More than to have me on a show it's always great to be here there's a couple of different signals that they look forward to identified as type of activity. One as his patterns of activity groups of accounts that are collectively spreading the information and connecting to each other and a certain way. And over the years have seen this type of activity. Dating back to 2016 elections of course these are folks have gotten better at seeing an identifying these types of activities. The other thing is some of the locations for some of these accounts which came directly from within China. Even though the Chinese people themselves can't get on to the social networks which is certainly a red flag that. I know a Twitter noticed and it looked at. Yet that's one thing as an askew because I'm FaceBook and Twitter are banned. In China so who exactly were they trying to reach. Yeah that's what's really interesting about this as I've reported on digital trends. Virtual private networks VP ends are tools that people within the repressive regimes like China often use to overcome some of the government's misinformation campaigns. In this case. The Chinese Government itself is using those VPNs to spread this type of information so who are they targeting they're not targeting the Chinese people because they can't see this stuff. This is the classic propaganda misinformation campaign straight out of the 1950s. They're trying to sway the people around the world who have seen some sympathy. For the Hong Kong protesters. China's doing everything it can't sit shift that that sentiment on line through pact through campaigns like this. Yes so this sounds very familiar to Americans because obviously I am it's similar to what happened with. Russia and our US elections how are these platforms working to make sure that this doesn't happen. Well it's a real challenges to thorn in their side let's be clear about that. Twitter I think it's very thing that Twitter is the one that identify this at first put often feel like the little brother to FaceBook here. So Twitter the wonder they identify the problem and brought it would have faced but it's that we've seen this what can you do. I think they are getting better at identifying in this type of activity especially that sort of pattern matching. Looking forward misinformation it supports other types of misinformation. However governments and world Asians whoever it is that's doing this type of thing is getting smarter and you begin in new and different ways so with the constant game of catch up but let's be clear. None of these social networks are doing effectively enough so they're doing more they're getting better. And the people are trying to battle against are getting smarter the same time it's out tough dollar face. Definitely I write Jeremy cap Lynn. Editor in chief of digital trends thanks so much for joining us today.