Twitter announced the removal of 5,929 accounts on Friday. It said the accounts were involved with a “state-backed information campaign” that originated in Saudi Arabia. They were part of a network that consisted of over 88,000 accounts, the firm said in a blog post.
Today, we are sharing comprehensive data about 5,929 accounts which we have removed for violating our platform manipulation policies. Rigorous investigations by our Site Integrity team have allowed us to attribute these accounts to a significant state-backed information operation on Twitter originating in Saudi Arabia. These accounts represent the core portion of a larger network of more than 88,000 accounts engaged in spammy behaviour across a wide range of topics. We have permanently suspended all of these accounts from the service. In order to protect the privacy of potentially compromised accounts repurposed to engage in platform manipulation, and in response to researcher feedback requesting that we pre-filter unrelated spam, we have not disclosed data for all 88,000 accounts. In the interest of offering meaningful transparency, the dataset we are disclosing includes a representative, random sample of the fake and spammy accounts associated with this broader network.
Check It Out: Twitter Removed 5,929 Accounts Linked to ‘State-Backed Information Operations’
Charlotte:
Good on Twitter.
However, the Saudis, and other state-run information warriors will study this, determine how they were outed, and re-engage with a better cloak. Tactical warfare is evolutionary, and failure is simply an opportunity to learn and improve; and the proven gains from information warfare, especially against major political powers, are too lucrative to pass up.