Twitter has locked the account of the US embassy in China for a tweet defending China's policies in the Xinjiang region, which the US social media site claims violates the company's policy against "dehumanization".

Chinese embassy account @ChineseEmbinUS released a tweet earlier this month citing a study published by the pro-government newspaper China Daily that Uighur women are no longer “baby-making machines”.

The tweet was removed by Twitter and replaced with a label that said it was not available. Even if Twitter hides tweets that violate its policies, account holders must manually delete such posts. The Chinese embassy account has not released any new tweets since January 9th.

In its final moments, the Trump administration shut down the embassy's account on Twitter a day after accusing China of genocide in Xinjiang, which was approved by the incoming Biden administration.