(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)Twitter revealed Thursday that it had removed thousands of malicious accounts thought to have originated in Iran, Russia and Venezuela for spreading disinformation online, including previously undisclosed efforts to target the 2018 U.S. midterm election. Twitter said it removed 418 accounts thought to have originated in Russia before Election Day in November but declined to specify exactly when and said it could not link the efforts definitively to the IRA. Similar tactics also had been used by operatives thought to be in Venezuela: Twitter said it has removed 764 accounts originating in the country that mimicked Russia’s information operations. The company said it removed a majority of these accounts by November 2017, but nearly a quarter of more recently created accounts tweeted 50,000 times about the 2018 midterm election. Twitter announced that it removed more than 2,600 accounts thought to be connected to this network.

Source: Washington Post January 31, 2019 19:31 UTC