Protesters in Beijing gather in protest over China’s repressive covid policy.

Over the weekend, you might not have seen the shocking footage coming out of several major Chinese cities, with thousands upon thousands of protesters taking to the streets chanting “stand up,” or “down with [Chinese president] Xi Jingping.” You may not have seen the rare display of cohesion from the protesters around the same issues of ongoing brutal covid-based lockdowns and government repression. You may also not have paid witness to the repressive and violent shows of force from police and other security forces.

Why did you not see this? A big reason for Twitter users, at least, was because Chinese-language malicious actors managed to flood the blue bird app with porn links that included the names of the cities involved in the protests. The massively-reduced Twitter struggled to combat what appeared to be government-affiliated accounts’ efforts to dampen news surrounding the protests, according to a report that cites past and current Twitter employees.

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According to The Washington Post, Chinese-language accounts started to flood the platform with links to porn services and escorts next to city names. For anybody actively looking for more news about the protests, this would flood their feeds with what amounted to porn ads. The accounts were reportedly dormant for months or years before being activated all at once, according to the Post.

Read more: gizmodo