Twitter Suspends Hundreds of Accounts Linked To Russian Operatives (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: Twitter says it found some 200 accounts linked to the same Russian groups that bought $100,000 worth of ads on Facebook to sow political unrest and manipulate U.S. voters during the presidential election. The Twitter accounts, which were taken down over the last month, were linked to 470 accounts and pages that Facebook traced to the International Research Agency, a Russian troll farm. According to a blog post released by Twitter Thursday after briefing staffers on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, the groups on Facebook had 22 Twitter accounts. Twitter found an additional 179 accounts connected to those 22. Twitter also shared information on Russian news outlet Russia Today, or RT, which has ties to the Kremlin, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Comments

Re:As opposed to others who do it?

[Calydor]

I'm rather curious about this as well. I haven't been following this thing very closely, so in short: What did they do that was illegal or against the ToS? Am I, as a Danish citizen living in Germany, gonna get banned from Twitter if I post, with no context, that I think you should vote against Trump in 2020?

"Rise your hand"

[PopeRatzo]

My favorite Russian Facebook accounts are the ones promoting the secession of Texas. Seriously, they're hysterically funny.

https://extranewsfeed.com/how-...

They even paid for a pro-secession delegation from Texas to go to Russia, where they could learn about true political freedom.

It sounds bad because it's Russia

[rmdingler]

Although the ability to manipulate public opinion through social media is, on its surface, a disheartening trend, there are some encouraging takeaways. The Russian attempts to influence the election outcome were neither extremely expensive, nor reliant upon technology unavailable to the common man.

Formerly, winning the hearts and minds of the populace at election time was the prerogative of the wealthy and influential, as powerful media barons and political machines dominated the landscape.

What we could be witnessing is the democratization of propaganda.

Re:As opposed to others who do it?

[AmiMoJo]

Many of them misrepresented their identity in order to deceive.

For excite, "AntiFa Boston" accidentally posted location data on a tweet recently (Moscow, Russia). The account is a troll stoking up division by pretending to be someone they are not, which is against the ToS.

Now if they could only...

[ckatko]

...do that to all the ISIS ones.

Re:As opposed to others who do it?

[MightyMartian]

So if I post under a fake Twitter account that you're a raging pedophile and catfucker, calling you out by name and warning your neighbors to keep their kids and cats away from you, that's like totally just parody, right?

I've never people more dedicated to trying to avoid the obvious; that they were duped by a dedicated and elaborate propaganda campaign by Russia to assist Donald Trump in getting elected than the alt-right.