Russia's playbook for social media disinformation has gone global

Twitter said on Thursday that more disinformation was coming from within the United States

Russia created a playbook for spreading disinformation on social media. Now the rest of the world is following it.

Twitter said on Thursday that countries including Bangladesh and Venezuela had been using social media to disseminate government talking points, while Facebook detailed a broad Iranian disinformation campaign that touched on everything from the conflict in Syria to conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks.

The campaigns tied to various governments — as well as privately held accounts in the United States — followed a pattern similar to Russian disinformation efforts before and after the 2016 presidential election. Millions of people were targeted