Twitter announced yesterday that it has removed more than 130 Twitter accounts linked to Iran for trying to “disrupt” Tuesday’s political debate between US President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden, ahead of the upcoming US presidential election . Twitter said it was informed of the fact that Iranian accounts tried to disrupt the Trump-Biden debate by the FBI .
The tech giant said it identified the accounts early on, removed them from platform and then shared details about them with “colleagues.” The company also clarified that these accounts had low engagement and did not influence the political debate.
Additionally, Twitter said it plans to publish details about the removed accounts and their tweets on the Transparency portal's section for influencer businesses.
In addition, the owner of the popular platform said earlier this year that he expected an attempt to influence the public political debate surrounding the upcoming US presidential election as November 3 approaches. In August, Twitter also removed user accounts for sharing the message that they would vote for Donald Trump, using a technique the company described as “copypasta”.
The company also called tweets shared by Iranian accounts “misleading” because they provided inaccurate information about voting and the election process. Twitter used this new feature to place warning labels on many of Donald Trump’s tweets throughout the summer and early fall.
The removal of accounts by Twitter is the second time this month that the giant has intervened to take down an influence operation on its platform, following a tip -off from the FBI. Twitter has previously removed accounts associated with PeaceData, a news site that published misleading articles about world politics. According to the FBI, that influence operation was linked to Russia.
