Twitter has removed more accounts to counteract fake news on the site.
The first wave of suspensions touched 284 accounts on August 21. This time, 486 accounts were suspended.
The company is still trying to limit the spread of fake news on the site. The accounts suspended were accused of “engaging in coordinated manipulation”, with many accounts from the first suspension originating from Iraq. Origins for the recent suspensions have not been revealed.
Fake news
According to Twitter, less than 100 accounts from the 770 suspended claimed to be based in the U.S.,and a lot of them were “sharing divisive social commentary.” The accounts had a combined audience of 1,268 followers, with most of the accounts having been active for less than a year.
These actions are a result of the summit that all major social media companies took part in last week to talk about possible preventions of hackers using their platforms to influence the upcoming midterm elections. Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft were all present at the summit.
While the number of accounts suspended may seem impressive, it is merely a drop in the ocean compared to Twitter’s daily users. During the last fiscal quarter, the site reported 335 million monthly users. That number has been changing recently, with Twitter putting in effort to remove fake accounts. The current investigation is still ongoing, so there may be more suspensions happening soon.
Working with our industry peers today, we have suspended 284 accounts from Twitter for engaging in coordinated manipulation. Based on our existing analysis, it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) August 22, 2018