Twitter notifies 1.4 mn users about Russian accounts

Twitter has notified some 1.4 million users about interactions with accounts associated with a Russian agency accused of interfering with the 2016 US presidential poll.

"Approximately 1.4 million people have now received a notification from Twitter (on their interaction with the Internet Research Agency or IRA).

"We will be sending a short survey to a small group of people who received our notification to gain feedback on this process," Twitter wrote in a blog late on Wednesday.

"As our review continues, we may also email additional users. If and when we do so, we will do our best to keep the public updated," the micro-blogging website said.

In December 2017, Twitter identified an additional 1,062 accounts associated with the IRA bringing the number to a total of 3,814 that posted 175,993 tweets, around 8.4 per cent of which were election-related.

"We are emailing notifications to 677,775 people in the US who followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked a Tweet from these accounts during the election period," Twitter had said at that time.

Twitter said that their notice efforts are focused on certain types of interactions and they will not encompass every person that ever saw this content.

"Our goal in providing these notifications is to advance public awareness of and engagement with the important issues raised in our blog post and provide greater transparency to our account holders and the public," the company said.

Twitter said it is committed to providing a platform that fosters healthy civic discourse and democratic debate.

--IANS

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