CYBER WARS
Twitter releases new trove of banned state propaganda
By Dave CLARK
Brussels (AFP) June 13, 2019

Social media giant Twitter on Thursday released a new archive of state-backed propaganda from accounts it has banned based in Iran, Russia, Spain and Venezuela.

The US platform said it had taken the material off its network, but would make it available to researchers and investigators studying online threats.

Tech firms have been accused of allowing political propagandists to use social media to hijack elections, poison online debate and smear their opponents.

But Twitter, in a blog post by head of site integrity Yoel Roth, said "transparency is core to our mission" and vowed to fight "misleading, deceptive, and spammy behaviour".

Thursday's release was the firm's third such archive, representing more than 30 million tweets and a terabyte of media data from just under 5,000 suspected accounts.

Twitter has removed 4,779 accounts it believes "are associated with -- or directly backed by -- the Iranian government."

Most of these were found to be spreading news stories angled to support Iranian geopolitical interests or to be fake user profiles designed to manipulate online debate.

A smaller sub-group, originating in Iran, exclusively "engaged with discussions related to Israel".

Twitter has previously targeted alleged Russian bots, and this archive contains four more accounts that the firm believes are associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA).

This St Petersburg-based "troll factory" has been accused of working with Russian intelligence to influence Western votes, notably US President Donald Trump's election campaign.

Investigations into the Russian agency also led Twitter's security team to 33 more accounts linked to a previously known group of 764 Venezuelan fake users.

"Our further analysis suggests that they were operated by a commercial entity originating in Venezuela," the post said.

And in Spain, Twitter has taken down 130 allegedly fake accounts apparently set up to push the views of Catalan separatists.

"We believe the public and research community are better informed by transparency," Roth said.

On Friday, EU justice commissioner Vera Jourova and security commissioner Julian King are to brief reporters on European efforts to fight political disinformation.

dc/lc/boc

Twitter


Related Links
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues

CYBER WARS
Huawei executive's extradition hearings set for 2020 in Vancouver
Montreal (AFP) June 6, 2019
Hearings on whether a top official with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei should be extradited to the United States to face accusations of violating Iran sanctions will begin on January 20, 2020, a Vancouver judge decided Thursday. According to a timeline agreed upon by lawyers and accepted by British Columbia's provincial supreme court, the five-day hearing in the case of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou will be the first in a series of court procedures in the complex case, with an aim of wrapping up by October ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

CYBER WARS
Syria says air defence downs Israeli missiles

Pentagon calls Turkey plan to buy Russian missiles 'devastating'

Syrian air defence fires at 'enemy missiles' in Damascus: state media

Erdogan offers Trump working group on Russian missiles

CYBER WARS
Iran unveils homegrown surface-to-air missile defense system

US gives Turkey to July 31 to backtrack on Russian missile deal

Turkey's Erdogan says no backtracking on S400 deal with Russia

Britain's Royal Air Force tests miniature missile decoys on Typhoon jets

CYBER WARS
Study of hawks' pursuit of prey could help scientists capture rogue drones

Amazon says drone deliveries coming 'within months'

Insitu nabs $47.9M to deliver ScanEagle drones to four U.S. allies in Asia

Northrop Grumman nabs $65M for drones for Navy, Australia

CYBER WARS
AFRL demonstrates world's first daytime free-space quantum communication enabled by adaptive optics

Harris to build new satellite connection system prototype for USAF

Navy to transfer future satcom programs to Air Force

Future narrowband satellite capability to transfer to Air Force

CYBER WARS
GenDyn gets $16.2M contract for Abrams M1A1 tank tech support

U.S. Army changes recruitment approach with new advertising agency

Trump blames drug use for transgender army ban

Oshkosh, Broshuis land $13.3M Army contract for new semitrailers

CYBER WARS
US House also seeks to block Trump arms sales to Saudi Arabia

Turkey says US ultimatum on Russia missile deal 'inappropriate'

Big US defense merger touts tech, but Trump has questions

Raytheon and United Technologies announce merger

CYBER WARS
USS Reagan, Japanese carrier conduct joint exercise in South China Sea/

Pentagon chief calls for political neutrality in military

Trump says considering 2,000 new troops for Poland

Russia says it intercepted U.S., Swedish aircraft over Baltic Sea

CYBER WARS
Monitoring the lifecycle of tiny catalyst nanoparticles

Fast and selective optical heating for functional nanomagnetic metamaterials

2D gold quantum dots are atomically tunable with nanotubes

Harnessing microorganisms for smart microsystems