Twitter removed around 130 Iranian accounts for attempting to disrupt the public recent US Presidential Debate.
The social media giant Twitter announced to have removed around 130 Iranian Twitter accounts that attempted to disrupt the public conversation during the recent first Presidential Debate for the US 2020 Presidential Election.
The company confirmed that it discovered the activity of the accounts following an alert from the FBI.
According to Twitter, the 130 accounts were quickly removed and appeared to originate in Iran.
Based on intel provided by the @FBI, last night we removed approximately 130 accounts that appeared to originate in Iran. They were attempting to disrupt the public conversation during the first 2020 US Presidential Debate.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 1, 2020
The company added that the removed accounts had a very low engagement, this means that their potential impact on the public conversation was limited.
We identified these accounts quickly, removed them from Twitter, and shared full details with our peers, as standard. They had very low engagement and did not make an impact on the public conversation. Our capacity and speed continue to grow, and we'll remain vigilant. Samples ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/1qzzL8l29H
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 1, 2020
In line with its principles of transparency and to improve public understanding of inauthentic influence campaigns, Twitter will publish details of this operation in its
Twitter said it plans to publish details about the removed accounts and their tweets on its Transparency portal‘s section related to information operations carried out by nation-state actors.
As standard, the accounts and their content will be published in full once our investigation is complete. We’re providing this notice to keep people updated in real time about our actions. We wish to thank the @FBI for their assistance. More on our work: https://t.co/jSJRGZVRNI
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 1, 2020
In September, the social network announced new measures to protect high-profile accounts during the upcoming US Presidential election.
The types of accounts that are in this designated group are:
- US Executive Branch and Congress
- US Governors and Secretaries of State
- Presidential campaigns, political parties and candidates with Twitter Election Labels running for US House, US Senate, or Governor
- Major US news outlets and political journalists
Twitter will use an internal notification service to alert owners of accounts associated with people in the above group.
The company also started using warning labels on several tweets considered as misleading messages because they were providing inaccurate information about voting and the electoral process.
Early September, Facebook and Twitter removed social media accounts for a news organization named PeaceData, which used as part of Russia’s state propaganda system.
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, 2020 Presidential Election)
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Pierluigi Paganini
Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at “Cyber Defense Magazine”, Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog “Security Affairs” recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the “The Hacker News” team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books “The Deep Dark Web” and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.
Twitter removed around 130 Iranian accounts for attempting to disrupt the public recent US Presidential Debate.
The social media giant Twitter announced to have removed around 130 Iranian Twitter accounts that attempted to disrupt the public conversation during the recent first Presidential Debate for the US 2020 Presidential Election.
The company confirmed that it discovered the activity of the accounts following an alert from the FBI.
According to Twitter, the 130 accounts were quickly removed and appeared to originate in Iran.
Based on intel provided by the @FBI, last night we removed approximately 130 accounts that appeared to originate in Iran. They were attempting to disrupt the public conversation during the first 2020 US Presidential Debate.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 1, 2020
The company added that the removed accounts had a very low engagement, this means that their potential impact on the public conversation was limited.
We identified these accounts quickly, removed them from Twitter, and shared full details with our peers, as standard. They had very low engagement and did not make an impact on the public conversation. Our capacity and speed continue to grow, and we'll remain vigilant. Samples ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/1qzzL8l29H
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 1, 2020
In line with its principles of transparency and to improve public understanding of inauthentic influence campaigns, Twitter will publish details of this operation in its
Twitter said it plans to publish details about the removed accounts and their tweets on its Transparency portal‘s section related to information operations carried out by nation-state actors.
As standard, the accounts and their content will be published in full once our investigation is complete. We’re providing this notice to keep people updated in real time about our actions. We wish to thank the @FBI for their assistance. More on our work: https://t.co/jSJRGZVRNI
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 1, 2020
In September, the social network announced new measures to protect high-profile accounts during the upcoming US Presidential election.
The types of accounts that are in this designated group are:
- US Executive Branch and Congress
- US Governors and Secretaries of State
- Presidential campaigns, political parties and candidates with Twitter Election Labels running for US House, US Senate, or Governor
- Major US news outlets and political journalists
Twitter will use an internal notification service to alert owners of accounts associated with people in the above group.
The company also started using warning labels on several tweets considered as misleading messages because they were providing inaccurate information about voting and the electoral process.
Early September, Facebook and Twitter removed social media accounts for a news organization named PeaceData, which used as part of Russia’s state propaganda system.
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, 2020 Presidential Election)