In a statement posted to the company’s Public Policy Twitter feed on Saturday, Twitter said “a number of accounts” had been suspended as part of efforts to target accounts engaging in “platform manipulation”.

“Some of these were involved in commentary about China. These accounts were not mass reported by the Chinese authorities – this was a routine action on our part,” the company said.

Such actions sometimes “catch false positives or we make errors”, it added. Twitter said it was working to “ensure we overturn any errors“.