Twitter has removed another batch of state-sponsored actors performing information campaigns on Twitter. The detected operations announced today involved Qatar, Iran, Yemen, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Spain, China, and Hong Kong.
Starting in October 2018, Twitter began disclosing state-backed information operations detected on their service and that were subsequently removed.
As part of this disclosure, Twitter would also make the data sets available that were associated with these campaigns so that researchers from the public, academia, and law enforcement can further analyze them.
The available data sets include information such as the name of the account, their tweets, the amount of followers, their reported location, and much more. This data is available to anyone to download, but is quite large with September 2019's data coming in over 1.5 terabytes.
Below are the state-backed operations reported by Twitter today.
China (PRC)/Hong Kong
In August, Twitter detected 200,000 fake accounts based in China (PRC) that were attempting to sow discord over the protests in Hong Kong. With today's data set release, Twitter is disclosing the data of of 4,301 accounts that were the most active in this campaign.
Approximately 13 accounts had over 100K followers, with one having over 300k. Six of these accounts stated they resided in the USA.
United Arab Emirates & Egypt
Twitter removed 273 accounts based out of the UAE and Egypt that targeted Qatar and Iran, while attempting to provide supportive content for Saudi Arabia. Twitter states that evidence shows that these accounts were created and managed by DotDev, a private technology company operating in the UAE and Egypt, who was also removed from Twitter.
"These accounts were interconnected in their goals and tactics: a multi-faceted information operation primarily targeting Qatar, and other countries such as Iran. It also amplified messaging supportive of the Saudi government. "
In addition, Twitter removed over 4,000 accounts based out of the UAE that were targeting Qatar and Yemen.
Saudi Arabia
Six accounts pretending to be independent journalistic outlets were linked to Saudi Arabia's state-run media and were found to be promoting the country's interests.
In addition, Twitter permanently suspended the Twitter account of Saudi crown prince Saud al-Qahtani for manipulating Twitter policies.
Spain
265 Twitter accounts operated by the Partido Popular political party in order to falsely boost public opinion in Spain were removed.
Ecuador
Twitter also published data for 1,019 accounts in Ecuador that were tied to the PAIS Alliance political party. These accounts were engaged in spreading content that focused on President Moreno’s administration through hashtag manipulation and retweet spam.