Washington: Twitter has removed 3,465 accounts operating as “state-backed information operations” that it linked to six countries, namely China, Mexico, Russia, Tanzania, Uganda and Venezuela, the micro-blogging site said on its website.
Most of the erased profiles – 2,048 – “amplified Chinese Communist Party narratives” related to the treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang province, the social media giant said on Thursday. Another 112 accounts that were removed were connected to “Changyu Culture”, a private company backed by the Xinjiang regional government, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.
In Uganda, Twitter removed 418 accounts “engaged in coordinated inauthentic activity” in support of President Yoweri Museveni and his party, the National Resistance Movement.
Similarly 270 accounts were closed in Tanzania after they were found to file bad faith reports on Twitter, targeting members and supporters of FichuaTanzania, a civil rights group.
Twitter shut down16 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company labelled a “troll farm” by critics, which runs pro-government online influence campaigns.
In Mexico 276 accounts showing pro-government content, and “277 similar Venezuelan accounts that amplified accounts, hashtags and topics in support of the government and its official narratives” were shut down. (UNI)