Twitter blocked more than 200 Russian accounts that distribute political advertising on the topic of elections in the US

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Yesterday, Colin Crowell, Vice President of Public Policy, Twitter, visited the Congress. As part of a closed meeting, he handed over to lawmakers from the intelligence committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate data on the alleged interference of Russia in US elections through the company's platform. It was reported that Twitter managed to find over 200 pro-Russian accounts that used its platform to spread political advertisements and misinform American users.

Note that earlier this month a similar statement was made by Facebook, announcing the discovery of 470 fake accounts and pages related to Russia and distributing advertisements in order to influence the US elections.

Twitter managed to find 22 accounts related to accounts previously blocked by Facebook. In addition to these 22 companies, they found 179 other accounts that tried to influence the course of the election campaign and distributed "misleading information." All of them, as Twitter was assured, were soon blocked for violating social network rules - spam mailing. Unlike accounts found by Facebook, the profiles found by Twitter were not registered as advertisers.

In an official blog, the company talks more about measures to counteract abuses associated with manipulating trends and automated sending spam. Twitter notes that the largest source of spam was historically "Russia and other countries of the post-Soviet space." And that it is very difficult to monitor such activities, coordinated by different people.

The report also says that three accounts of Russia Today, allegedly connected with the Russian government, in 2016 for advertising for Americans, totaled $ 274 thousand.

Twitter also promised in the coming months to introduce new mechanisms to detect malicious activities, but what exactly it will be in the company did not report. In addition, like Facebook, Twitter has committed itself to making political advertising itself more transparent.

Source: The Verge