Twitter says it has deleted nearly 4,800 suspect accounts linked to Iran that the company says secretly pushed that government’s agenda.
Most of these were found to be spreading news stories angled to support Iranian geopolitical interests or to be fake user profiles designed to manipulate online debate.
A smaller sub-group, originating in Iran, exclusively “engaged with discussions related to Israel.”
Twitter is adding these accounts and their tweets to a public database it launched last year to track its battle against government-linked misinformation. It is also adding a smaller number of deleted accounts linked to Russia, Venezuela and the Catalonia region of Spain.
Twitter says the removals are meant to prevent election interference while preserving valid political speech.
The company confirmed last month it had removed about 2,800 of the Iranian accounts that were using fake personas.
— Agencies
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