Twitter has removed another batch of accounts from its platform for participating in what it calls ‘coordinated manipulation.’
The social media giant announced late Monday that it had suspended another 486 accounts believed to be linked to Iran’s disinformation campaign, bringing the total number of deleted accounts to 770.
Last week, Twitter announced it had taken down 486 accounts that were tied to Iran.
Twitter has removed another batch of accounts from its platform for participating in what it calls ‘coordinated manipulation.’ It removed an additional 486 accounts from its site
‘Since our initial suspensions last Tuesday, we have continued our investigation, further building our understanding of these networks,’ Twitter’s safety division wrote in a tweet.
‘In addition, we suspended an additional 486 accounts for violating the policies outlined last week.
‘That bringing the total suspended to 770,’ they continued.
Most of the suspended accounts are believed to be from Iran. Fewer than 100 were located in the US and they tweeted about 867 times, were followed by 1,268 accounts and had joined Twitter less than a year ago.
As with much of the content discovered from fake accounts, they were sharing content meant to sow division between Americans, often touching on inflammatory political issues.
Interestingly, unlike other disinformation campaigns that have involved far-right themes, the content removed by Twitter involved anti-Trump rhetoric.
Other disinformation campaigns have involved far-right themes, but the content removed involved anti-Trump rhetoric. Pictured are examples of tweets from suspended accounts
As with much of the content discovered from fake accounts, they were sharing content meant to sow division between Americans, often touching on inflammatory political issues
For example, one post states ‘The exact moment American stopped being “great,” and shows a photo of President Donald Trump being sworn in.
Another one of the identified accounts claimed the FBI was blackmailing Trump.
‘We identified one advertiser from the newly suspended set that ran $30 in ads in 2017,’ Twitter’s safety unit noted.
‘Those ads did not target the US and the billing address was located outside of Iran.
‘We remain engaged with law enforcement and our peer companies on the issue,’ they continued.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently admitted in an interview with CNN that the company hasn’t ‘figured out’ fake news yet, noting that policing false information is a difficult task
The move comes after Twitter announced last week that it had suspended 284 accounts from its platform, also for engaging in ‘coordinated manipulation.’
Shortly before it, Facebook said it had removed 652 pages, groups and accounts that were tied to Russia and Iran.
Facebook and Twitter worked with cybersecurity firm FireEye to identify the suspicious accounts.
‘These were networks of accounts that were misleading people about who they were and what they were doing,’ CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with reporters.
‘We ban this kind of behavior because authenticity matters. People need to be able to trust the connections they make on Facebook.’
Google also removed 58 accounts from YouTube, Google+ and other sites that were linked to Iran.
Domain ownership information and other evidence was ‘strongly linked’ to Iran’s state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the firm said.
It comes as Twitter, Google, Facebook and others face growing scrutiny from users, experts and lawmakers to ramp up security efforts ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
All of them have struggled to deal with the spread of false information and fake accounts on their platforms.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently admitted in an interview with CNN that the company hasn’t ‘figured out’ fake news yet, noting that policing false information is a difficult task.
Additionally, Dorsey is set to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Sept. 5 about how Twitter monitors and polices content.