Twitter Released Millions of Tweets Related to 'Cyber Operations by Russia and Iran'

On Wednesday, October 25, the social media platform Twitter published millions of tweets from accounts associated with 'information' operations aimed at influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. According to Reuters, Twitter had previously announced the number of these accounts, but now it has released the content of these tweets, including images, videos, and other information. The report states that these 10 million tweets belong to over 4,600 accounts, of which 3,841 are linked to the 'Internet Research Agency' in Russia. Additionally, 770 accounts associated with Iran have also been identified. This released collection, besides the 10 million tweets, includes two million photos and videos. Twitter stated that it is making this information and the contents of these tweets available for further examination by researchers and the academic community worldwide. Last year, Twitter closed several accounts in Russia that were spreading fake information during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, and this year it announced that hundreds of accounts in Russia and Iran are conducting cyber operations. The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 elections in late July and charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with intervening in the elections. Following this, Washington imposed sanctions against Moscow. In this context, Facebook also announced in August of this year that it had blocked hundreds of pages and accounts linked to Iran and Russia due to 'unreliable coordinated behavior.' Facebook stated in a post that it had removed 652 pages, groups, and accounts on its platform that targeted people in the Middle East, Latin America, the UK, and the U.S. The cybersecurity company 'FireEye' also reported in August of this year that a network associated with Iranian state media was conducting propaganda activities against Saudi Arabia and Israel while supporting Palestinians and the nuclear agreement. Previously, Twitter's safety division stated that it had blocked 284 accounts that engaged in 'coordinated manipulation.' This social media platform claims that many of these accounts originated from Iran.