Twitter suspends 200 Russia-linked accounts

Twitter says it has suspended about 200 Russian-linked accounts as it probes online efforts to meddle with the 2016 US election. File picture: Matt Rourke/AP

Twitter says it has suspended about 200 Russian-linked accounts as it probes online efforts to meddle with the 2016 US election. File picture: Matt Rourke/AP

Published Sep 29, 2017

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Washington - Twitter

said on Thursday it had suspended about 200

Russian-linked accounts as it probes online efforts to meddle

with the 2016 US election, but an influential Democratic

senator slammed its steps as insufficient.

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate

Intelligence Committee, summoned Twitter officials to testify

behind closed doors on Thursday as part of broad investigation

of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. Facebook

faced a similar grilling earlier this month.

Lawmakers in both parties suspect social networks may have

played a big role in Moscow's attempts to spread propaganda, sow

political discord in the United States and help elect President

Donald Trump. Moscow denies any such activity, and Trump has

denied any collusion.

Twitter also briefed the House of Representatives

Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Warner said Twitter officials had not answered many

questions about Russian use of the platform and that it was

still subject to foreign manipulation.

The company's presentation to the Intelligence Committee

"showed an enormous lack of understanding from the Twitter team

of how serious this issue is," Warner said. He took particular

umbrage at what he said was Twitter's decision to largely

confine its review to accounts linked to fake profiles already

spotted by Facebook.

Twitter said it had identified and removed 22 accounts

directly linked to about 500 fake Facebook pages or profiles

tied to Russia and that it unearthed an additional 179 accounts

that were otherwise related.

Twitter declined to comment when asked about Warner's

comments.

In addition to the private testimony by its officials, the

company published a public blog post on Thursday with its most

detailed discussion to date of the steps it was taking to combat

propaganda.

Warner in remarks to reporters called Twitter's statements

"deeply disappointing" and "inadequate on almost every level."

The comments signalled that the congressional investigations

into Russia's use of social media platforms would not ease up.

Twitter, Facebook and other Internet companies including

Alphabet Inc's Google are facing a steady stream of

criticism as more information emerges about manipulation of

their platforms during the 2016 election campaign.

Users, lawmakers and technology analysts have long

criticised Twitter as too lax in policing fake or abusive

accounts. Unlike Facebook, Twitter allows both anonymous

accounts and automated accounts, or bots, making it far more

difficult to police the service.

On Thursday, researchers at Oxford University published a

study concluding that Twitter bots disseminated misinformation

and propaganda at a higher rate in US battleground states than

in non-competitive states during a 10-day period around Election

Day in November.

San Francisco-based Twitter said Russian media outlet Russia

Today, which is close to the Kremlin, had spent $274,100 on

Twitter advertisements and promoted 1,823 tweets potentially

aimed at the US market.

Those ad buys alone topped the $100,000 that Facebook this

month linked to a Russian propaganda operation during the 2016

election cycle, a revelation that prompted calls from some

Democrats for new disclosure rules for online political ads.

The editor-in-chief of Kremlin-backed media outlet RT said on Friday its purchase of advertisements on Twitter was standard commercial practice that was being falsely presented as Russian meddling in US affairs, RIA news agency reported.

"Twitter has revealed some monstrous information in Congress: we spent money on our ad campaigns. Just as all the usual media organisations in the world do," RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.

"Now we have to go even further and admit sincerely: we spent on ads in airports, taxis, on billboards, the internet, TV and radio as well. Our commercials were even broadcast on CNN," she said.

"Somehow it did not occur to us that, in a developed democracy, regular media advertising could turn out to be a suspicious and harmful activity," Simonyan said. 

AP

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