bigtunaonline/iStock(NEW YORK) — Twitter on Thursday said it has deleted thousands of fake accounts from Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Bangladesh.
More than 1,000 accounts located in Venezuela were engaged in a “state-backed influence campaign” targeting domestic audiences, the social media company wrote in a post on its website.
The company also said it had “identified and suspended 2,617 additional malicious accounts” in Iran.
Facebook also announced on Thursday it took down “783 pages, groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior tied to Iran,” in a post on its website.
Facebook shared information about the suspicious activity with Twitter, the company’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, told reporters on a conference call. The company took down fake posts from Facebook and Instagram but said it did not find similar activity on its WhatsApp platform, Gleicher said.
Gleicher sidestepped questions about dubious behavior from Venezuela.
Information that allowed Facebook to find these inauthentic accounts came from Twitter, as it shared information about similar accounts on its platform. Facebook in turn shared all its findings with Twitter, Gleicher said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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