The Twitter social network he revealed today three new government interventions made on this year's platform.
The social network banned and removed 32.242 accounts that were part of networks operated by China, Russia and Turkey. All three countries promoted political agendas and narratives and linked to state actors.
China
Of the three networks, the largest was that of China. Twitter reportedly closed 23.750 accounts that served as the network's core.
The tweets posted by these accounts were then boosted by a secondary network with more than 150.000 accounts, acting as promoters.
The purpose of these tweets was to promote and spread geopolitical narratives that were favorable to the Chinese Communist Party, but also "misleading narratives about political dynamics in Hong Kong."
Russia
The social network also reported that it found and removed 1.152 accounts related to Russia and Current Policy, a news site that promotes political propaganda and is supported by the state.
Just like the China network, this network targeted Russian-speaking users.
Turkey
A third such network had been set up by Turkey, and was promoting political tweets to Turkish-speaking users.
“Based on our analysis of network technical indicators and account behavior, fake and hacked accounts were used accounts to reinforce political narratives favorable to the AK Parti and were showing strong support for President Erdogan,” Twitter said.
In total, Twitter deleted 7.340 accounts and said it believed those accounts had been operated by AK Party youth.
This network included not only bots but also accounts that had been compromised. Twitter reported that all the breached accounts had been linked to organizations that criticized President Erdogan and the Turkish government. After the violations, of course, the same accounts stood out for their pro-government tweets.
“Αυτοί οι παραβιασμένοι λογαριασμοί ήταν επανειλημμένοι στόχοι για hacking και προσπάθειες εξmarket από τους κρατικούς φορείς που προσδιορίστηκαν παραπάνω”.