Cyabra, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, said it was highly probable that an orchestrated campaign had promoted Zhao’s tweet.

Cyabra said it had found 57.5% of accounts that engaged with Zhao’s tweet were fake, and “evidence of a largely orchestrated disinformation campaign” to amplify its message. The firm did not give any details about who was behind the campaign.

Cyabra said it analysed 1,344 profiles and found a large number were created in November and used once, to retweet Zhao’s tweet.