Russian-linked automated Twitter accounts, or bots, retweeted Donald Trump almost half a million times in the final weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Twitter told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The accounts retweeted then-candidate Donald Trump 10 times more than they retweeted his rival Hillary Clinton, according to Twitter's written statement to the committee. The 2.1 million tweets sent by the automated accounts represented 1% of election-related activist tweets on its platform, Twitter said. Twitter's analysis of Russian automated bot activity is the latest correspondence from the company to be released by congressional investigators. Automated Twitter accounts that retweet or tweet the same thing en masse can create talking points that appear to have more support than they actually do.

Source: CNN January 27, 2018 21:00 UTC