Twitter suspends accounts linked to Saudi Arabia for spreading disinformation

With social media platforms open to all kinds of operations carried out by simple individuals to state-sponsored outfits, they are starting to resemble the Wild West in terms of there being little to no order and a glaring inability to reign in harmful content. Twitter just permanently suspended another set of 1,589 accounts linked to countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Cuba for carrying out state information operations.

According to Twitter’s blog post, accounts operated in Iran “artificially amplified conversations on politically sensitive topics.” In recent times, these include things like the Black Lives Matter movement and the killing of George Floyd. Many of the accounts were compromised, and Twitter managed to return most of them to their original owners.

The microblogging platform banned a further 33 accounts linked to the Saudi government for propagating unfavorable narratives about politics in Qatar.

“These accounts were created to impersonate key Qatari political figures and to advance narratives about Qatari politics which are geostrategically favorable to the Saudi authorities,” Twitter wrote on its blog.

The company also proceeded to suspend 526 “fake accounts” allegedly operated by youth groups connected to the Cuban government. It permanently terminated 926 accounts allegedly run by the Royal Thai Army (RTA) as well, for “amplifying pro-RTA and pro-government content, as well as engaging in behaviour targeting prominent political opposition figures.”

Twitter also added details of five Russian accounts it suspended back in September to its state-linked information operations archive. It says that these accounts are linked to trolls behind a fake news site.

Unsurprisingly, this is merely part of an ongoing cleanup process as far as state-sponsored accounts are concerned. Back in June, the company said it suspended around 178,000 accounts linked to China, Russia, and Turkey, and added their details to its archive.