Twitter publishes a wealth of data on Russian and Iranian foreign influence campaigns


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On Wednesday, Twitter released a wealth of data on foreign influence and disinformation campaigns spanning nearly a decade – just three weeks before the mid-term elections in the United States.

The social media company said in a blog Wednesday This morning, data came from 3,841 affiliated accounts of the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency and 770 other accounts potentially originating from Iran.

Data dissemination includes the tweet content of these accounts, which provides a more detailed overview of how these accounts work.

"They include more than 10 million Tweets and more than 2 million images, GIFs, videos and Periscope broadcasts, including the very first activity on Twitter from accounts related to these campaigns, dating back to 2009, "said the company in this article.

"In keeping with our strong principles of transparency and improved understanding of foreign influence and misinformation campaigns, we publish complete and complete archives of Tweets and media related to these two previously disclosed transactions. and potentially supported by the state. on our service, "said the company.

The company said the publication follows its commitment to Congress earlier this year to provide regular updates and information related to its investigation of foreign influence campaigns on the platform.

Twitter added that the purpose of this publication was to make the data available to researchers and academics for the purpose of investigation.

As a result of its investigation into Russia's meddling around the 2016 presidential election, Twitter had said in January it had reported to about 1.4 million people that they had communicated directly with accounts related to Russia during the election or that they had actively followed these accounts at the time. they were suspended.

Twitter added that it was "clear that the information operations and coordinated inauthentic behavior will not stop" and that the company was "determined to understand how bad faith actors are using our services".

The announcement comes as US technology companies have stepped up efforts to identify and stop attempts by foreign agents seeking to influence elections before November 6.

In August, Facebook and Twitter claimed to have discovered hundreds of accounts, pages and groups based in Iran, which reportedly secretly broadcast political content to people from four continents, including the United States.

Twitter has also served millions of fake accounts of its service in recent months.

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