Twitter, Google, Facebook grilled by Congress: What we know
Lawyers for Google, Twitter, and Facebook testify in front of Congress and say they found more evidence Russian groups may have tried to influence the 2016 election
Twitter announced Friday that it has suspended more than 1,000 new accounts linked to Russian-controlled accounts which shared information meant to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
In a post on its blog, the social media platform said it had suspended 1,062 new accounts linked to “a number of accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency.”
In addition to them being taken down, Twitter also said it will send email notifications to 677,775 people in the U.S. that interacted with any of these accounts either by following, retweeting or liking a post during the campaign.
Twitter also found 13,512 Russian-related accounts that tweeted out 50,258 posts during the election period.
The blog post shared some examples of the tweets that may have found their way into some users' feeds during that time.
One tweet read, “Cops have killed 68 people in 22 days since #Kaepernick started protesting. 68 in 22 days… have no words #KeithLamontScott.”
Another featured a picture of former FBI Director James Comey with the words “Resign Now” and the caption “RT if you also think that FBI Director James Comey should be impeached for blocking the investigation & abetting a criminal.”
The findings come just a week after Twitter representatives testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, where they were grilled over Russia’s and other extremists’ use of the platform.
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