Twitter announced today that it has removed a set of government accounts from its platform. The accounts originated from countries including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Ecuador and China.
These deductions follow the deduction of other government accounts made last January (Bangladesh, Iran, Russia, Venezuela), June (Iran, Spain, Venezuela) and August (China).
Just like before, Twitter has made information about these accounts and their tweets public and available for research and academic purposes.
United Arab Emirates & Egypt – 267 accounts
Reason: “These accounts are interconnected by their goals and tactics : a multi-faceted information operation primarily targeting Qatar and other countries such as Iran, while also posting messages in support of the Saudi Arabian government.”
Twitter said it believes the accounts were operated by DotDev, a private technology operating in the UAE and Egypt.
United Arab Emirates – 4,258 accounts
Reason: “These accounts often use fake faces and tweet about local issues, such as the Yemeni civil war and the Houthi movement.”.
Saudi Arabia – 6 accounts
Reason: “Worked in coordinated efforts to enhance messaging beneficial to the Saudi government. While active, these accounts presented themselves as independent journalistic sources, making favorable posts about the Saudi government.”.
Additionally, Twitter said it had suspended the personal account of Saud al-Qahtani, a former adviser to the Saudi royal court. Twitter said his account was suspended for “violations of the platform’s policies.”.
Spain – 259 accounts
Reason: “Strengthening public sentiment for Spain […] These accounts were active for a relatively short period of time and were primarily fake, involving spamming or repetitive actions to increase engagement.”
Twitter said the accounts were linked to the Partido Popular, a political party with right-wing conservative views.
Ecuador – 1,019 accounts
Reason: “The network, which is made up mostly of fake accounts, was primarily engaged in disseminating content related to President Moreno, focusing on issues related to Ecuador’s freedom of speech law, government censorship, and technology. They used tactics such as tweet manipulation and the reproduction of fake news.”
China – 4,302 accounts
Reason: “Creating negative sentiment regarding the Hong Kong protest movement.”
Twitter said these accounts are operated by the Chinese government and are directly linked to accounts it banned last month.
