Bloomberg — Twitter said Thursday that it deleted 3,465 accounts that were distributing content related to information operations by several countries around the world.
From 276 inauthentic accounts in Mexico to 277 in Venezuela, Twitter said the remotion of these networks is part of the social media effort to control platform manipulation campaigns.
“Today, we’re disclosing an additional 3,465 accounts to our archive of state-linked information operations — the only one of its kind in the industry. The account sets include eight distinct operations we’ve attributed to six countries – Mexico, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Venezuela, respectively. Every account and piece of content associated with these operations has been permanently removed from the service,” said the company in its official blog.
In the case of Mexico, Twitter said the deleted accounts “shared primarily civic content, in support of government initiatives related to public health and political parties.”
In the case of Venezuela, the social media company said it deleted a “network of 277 accounts that amplified accountos, hashtags and topics in support of the government and its official narratives.”
The “Twitter Patria” app was also suspended as it was part of what the company described as “abuse” by its users and operators.
Twitter also highlighted the support of three allies in the investigation process, among them the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and Fake News Hunters, the latter being a Venezuelan community that monitors disinformation spread in WhatsApp groups and social networks among its citizens.
Other countries named today by Twitter are China, Russia, Tanzania, and Uganda.
So far, in the three years under this initiative, Twitter has removed posts from 17 countries, “spanning more than 200 million Tweets and nine terabytes of media.”
Previously, this week, Twitter said it suspended some 34,000 accounts for promoting terrorism or sharing sexual content related to minorsm or non-consensual nudity.
