Twitter takes down China’s “baby-making machines” tweet on Uighur women

Enlarge /. The Chinese embassy in the US published this tweet on Thursday morning. Twitter removed it on Friday night.

BULENT KILIC / AFP) (Photo by BULENT KILIC / AFP via Getty Images

On Thursday evening I wrote about a tweet from the US Embassy of the Chinese government praising China's treatment of the Uighur minority. According to the tweet, China was in the process of "rooting out" Uyghur extremism that the government claimed had "emancipated" Uyghur women. "Gender equality and reproductive health have been promoted so that they are no longer machines for making babies," the message claimed.

When I asked about it on Twitter Thursday night, a spokesperson told me that "this tweet does not violate our guidelines." The tweet stayed online for most of the day on Friday. But on Friday evening the tweet disappeared and was replaced by a note that "this tweet violates the Twitter rules".

"Upon further review, we have taken action against this tweet to violate ours Rules against dehumanization"Said a Twitter spokeswoman to Ars on Friday night."Among other things, we prohibit the dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, race, or ethnicity.

Human rights activists have described China's treatment of the Uyghurs as demographic genocide. According to the Associated Press, the Chinese government "regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks and forcing hundreds of thousands of women in the Xinjiang area to have intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion."

Women who resist these contraceptive measures or have more than the approved number of children will be sent to detention centers, according to the AP. "The police raid houses and scare parents when they look for hidden children."

It's been a busy day for the Twitter content moderation team. Hours earlier, Twitter had permanently banned President Donald Trump from the platform for inciting violence.