Twitter said it had removed nearly 3,500 accounts spreading pro-government propaganda material in six countries, including China and Russia.
The website said in a statement that the vast majority of the accounts were part of a network that “amplified Chinese Communist Party narratives related to the treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.”
Twitter has also closed 112 accounts connected to Changyu Culture, a private company affiliated with the regional government of Xinjiang.
The move came a day after Meta announced that it had removed more than 500 Facebook accounts that were part of a China-related influence campaign related to COVID-19, about which Misbar had published a report.
Outside of China, Twitter has also shut down 16 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company described by critics as a troll farm, which runs pro-government propaganda campaigns online.
“The operation relied on a mix of inauthentic and real accounts to introduce a pro-Russia viewpoint into Central African political discourse,” the website said in its statement.
“We also removed a network of 50 accounts that attacked the civilian Libyan government and actors that support it while voicing significant support for Russia’s geopolitical position in Libya and Syria,” Twitter added.
The banned accounts also include 276 accounts that share pro-government content in Mexico and “277 Venezuelan accounts that amplified accounts, hashtags, and topics in support of the government and its official narratives.”
In Africa, 268 accounts were closed for filing “bad faith reports” targeting civil rights group FichuaTanzania, along with 418 that “engaged in coordinated inauthentic activity” in Uganda to support President Yoweri Museveni.
“In most instances, accounts were suspended for various violations of our platform manipulation and spam policies,” Twitter said.
The move comes after Twitter faced criticism for failing to tackle misinformation as well as racist and biased content on its platform.
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri
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