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New York, Sept 29: Twitter on Friday published a blog on the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States Presidential elections and its fight against bots, spam, malicious automated accounts, manipulation, and misinformation. Twitter’s blog has come at a time when there’s been an intense scrutiny on social media sites on how “malicious bots and misinformation networks on Twitter may have been used in the context of the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections”.
In a blog named ‘Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, & Misinformation‘, which is an update of Twitter’s VP for Public Policy, Colin Crowell’s blog on Twitter’s approach to bots and misinformation, the social media site said that it continues to strengthen itself against attempted manipulation that violates their Terms of Service.
“…our work to fight both malicious bots and misinformation goes beyond any one specific election, event, or time period. We’ve spent years working to identify and remove spammy or malicious accounts and applications…we continue to improve our internal systems to detect and prevent new forms of spam and malicious automation, in real time…” the Twitter blog read.
Twitter said that of the total 450 accounts that Facebook shared as their review, 22 had accounts on Twitter. “All the identified accounts have been suspended,” it said, adding that they found “an additional 179 related or linked accounts” and took action against them. (Also Read: Donald Trump Calls Facebook Anti-Trump, Mark Zuckerberg Hits Back)
“Neither the original accounts shared by Facebook, nor the additional related accounts we identified, were registered as advertisers on Twitter. However, we continue to investigate these issues, and will take action on anything that violates our Terms of Service.”
It also said that Russia Today had spent $274,100 on US ads in 2016. In 2016, the Russia Today, RT America and RT en Español had promoted 1,823 Tweets targeting the US market.
About their fight during 2016 Presidential elections, Twitter removed “Tweets that were attempting to suppress or otherwise interfere with the exercise of voting rights”, it said. Twitter lists out their fight against malicious content and misinformation that include (1) stopping them before they start, (2) investing in systems to stop bad content at its source, (3) detecting non-human activity patterns, (4) checking suspicious content, among others.
About investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Twitter informed that they are in dialogue with congressional committees. Crowell met with staff from Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the attempted manipulation issues.
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