A Russian troll factory ran 49 Twitter accounts which pumped out nearly 1,000 messages to try to sway the outcome of the Brexit referendum, MPs have been told.
Twitter said they discovered the accounts as they probed claims Moscow tried to interfere with the historic referendum in the UK.
Bosses at the website said the single factory sent out some 942 messages during the fiercely contested referendum vote.
Twitter executive Nick Pickles told the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee the suspect accounts won ‘very low levels of engagement’ from users.
Twitter executive Nick Pickles (file image) told the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee the suspect accounts won ‘very low levels of engagement’ from users
It comes after YouTube said it found no evidence Russia posted fake news to interfere with the Brexit referendum.
Politicians have been hearing evidence from a string of social media companies as part of their probe into claims Moscow tried to sway the vote.
Meanwhile, Juniper Downs, YouTube’s global head of public policy, said there was no evidence Russia had used their website to interfere with the vote.
She told the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee YouTube would help with other investigations into possible Russian attempts to influence votes in Britain.
The committee travelled to the US to take evidence from a string of social media companies into their probe into fake news.
Juniper Downs (pictured giving evidence to MPs in the US today YouTube’s global head of public policy, said there was no evidence Russia had interfered in the Brexit referendum
They also met with senior senators who have been investigating allegations of Russian interference and collusion in the US presidential election won by Donald Trump.
Ms Downs told the committee: ‘Absolutely we are happy to co-operate with the UK Government’s investigations into whether there was any interference in elections in the UK.
‘We have conducted a thorough investigation around the Brexit referendum and found no evidence of interference.
‘We looked at all advertisements with any connection to Russia and we found no evidence of our services being used to interfere in the Brexit referendum and we are happy to co-operate with any further efforts.’
The Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee travelled to the US to take evidence from a string of social media companies into their probe into fake news
YouTube has previously told a US Senate committee it had discovered 18 channels were linked to a suspected Russian content farm known as the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg.
In September, Facebook bowed to pressure and provided the contents of 3,000 ads bought by a Russian agency to the US committee.
Damian Collins, the committee chairman, has previously slammed social media companies like Facebook and twitter for not doing enough to tackle the spread of fake news online.
He said Twitter had given a ‘completely inadequate’ response into his Commons Committee’s probe.