Australian Prime Minister’s WeChat Account ‘Sold’ to Chinese Businessman
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat profile has been “sold” to a Chinese businessperson following revelations the Australian leader’s social media team lost control of his account earlier this month. According to the Daily Telegraph, the account’s name was changed from “Scott Morrison” to “Australian Chinese New Lifestyle.” A search on WeChat for an account under the name “Scott Morrison” by The Epoch Times also yielded no results. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) found that the CEO of an information technology firm, Huang Aipeng, had purchased the prime minister’s account from a Chinese national only known as Mr. Ji. Ji was part of the agency hired by the prime minister’s office to run his WeChat account—a practice common among politicians and organisations keen to communicate with Chinese-speaking communities in China or overseas (Australia has around 1.2 million ethnic Chinese). WeChat, however, limits the use of public accounts on its platform to …