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Twitter Suspends 486 More Accounts Linked to Iran, Russia

Twitter Suspends 486 More Accounts Linked to Iran, Russia

By Indo-Asian News Service | Updated: 28 August 2018 13:04 IST

Highlights

Twitter had earlier suspended 284 accounts originating in Iran, Russia
Less than 100 of 770 suspended accounts claimed to be located in US
Last week, Facebook removed 652 pages, groups, and accounts

After suspending 284 accounts originating in Iran and Russia that were said to be designed to mislead people in the Middle East, Latin America, Britain and the US, Twitter on Tuesday announced it has cracked down on additional 486 such accounts.

"Since our initial suspensions last week, we have continued our investigation, further building our understanding of these networks.

"In addition, we have suspended an additional 486 accounts for violating the policies outlined last week. This brings the total to 770," Twitter said in a statement.

Fewer than 100 of the 770 suspended accounts claimed to be located in the US and many of these were sharing divisive social commentary.

Google Deletes Accounts With Ties to Iran on YouTube, Other Sites

"On average, these 100 Tweeted 867 times, were followed by 1,268 accounts, and were less than a year old," said Twitter Safety in a tweet.

Last week, Facebook and Twitter removed hundreds of accounts that originated in Iran and Russia.

Facebook removed 652 pages, groups and accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behaviour".

Facebook acted on these accounts after FireEye, a global cyber-security firm, gave it information in July about "Liberty Front Press", a network of Facebook Pages as well as accounts on other online services.

Based on FireEye's tip, Facebook started an investigation into "Liberty Front Press" and identified additional accounts and Pages from their network.

"We are able to link this network to Iranian state media through publicly available website registration information, as well as the use of related IP addresses and Facebook Pages sharing the same admins," Facebook informed.

Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts in May and June in a massive drive to clear out bots and trolls on the platform.

Facebook recently deleted 32 Pages and accounts attempting to influence the US mid-term elections.

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