88,000 Saudi-backed handles banned by Twitter
By MYBRANDBOOK
In what appears to be one of the largest crackdowns on state-backed account in its history, Twitter has banned 88,000 accounts which were part of a significant state-backed information operation. The accounts originated in Saudi Arabia.
The details of only about 5,929 accounts were shared by Twitter to protect the privacy of potentially compromised accounts. The accounts represented the core portion of a larger network of more than 88,000 accounts engaged in spammy behaviour across a wide range of topics.
These accounts have been permanently suspended from Twitter’s platform.
"In order to protect the privacy of potentially compromised accounts repurposed to engage in platform manipulation, and in response to researcher feedback requesting that we pre-filter unrelated spam, we have not disclosed data for all 88,000 accounts," Twitter said in a statement.
"Primarily, accounts were amplifying messages favourable to Saudi authorities, mainly through inauthentic engagement tactics such as aggressive liking, retweeting and replying," the platform said in a blog post late Friday.
In September, the micro blogging platform banned seven Saudi accounts for similar co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour.
The Saudi government however has not yet made a statement on Twitter's latest action.
The majority of the content from the new network was in Arabic.
"Our investigations have traced the source of the coordinated activity to Smaat, a social media marketing and management company based in Saudi Arabia,” it added.
Twitter said that the social media marketing and management company has created, purchased, and/or managed these accounts on behalf of a" but not necessarily with the knowledge of a" their clients. It has now permanently suspended Smaat's account, as well as the Twitter accounts of Smaat's senior executives.
"Smaat managed a range of Twitter accounts for high-profile individuals, as well as many government departments in Saudi Arabia," it said.
"These tactics made it more difficult for observers to identify political Tweets in the timelines of accounts, which mostly shared automated, non-political content," said Twitter.
In similar incidents earlier, Twitter in May banned nearly 3,000 accounts originating from Iran, and removed other accounts tied to Russia and Venezuela.
Raising concerns that American technology firms might be exposed to foreign governments, two former Twitter employees were charged with spying in November for the Saudi Arabia government and the Kingdom’s royal family, according to the US Justice Department.
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