Twitter spots 50,000 Russian bots

London: Twitter says it will notify nearly 700,000 users who interacted with accounts the company has identified as potential pieces of a propaganda effort by the Russian government during the 2016 US presidential election, according to reports in The Slate and the Guardian and The Washington Post.

The company disclosed thousands of accounts that it said were associated with the Kremlin-linked troll farm, the Internet Research Agency and the Russian government, adding to numbers that it released to Congress in October. 

Twitter said that it had identified 3,814 IRA-linked accounts, which posted some 176,000 tweets in the 10 weeks preceding the election, and another 50,258 automated accounts connected to the Russian government, which tweeted more than a million times, while acknowledging that “such activity represents a challenge to democratic societies everywhere.”

The disclosures are the latest sign of how widely the effort to disrupt the 2016 election through disinformation permeated the services of social media companies, the media reported. It is yet another instance where Twitter appears to be adjusting its service in the wake of cultural shifts exposed by Russian meddling. US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia conducted a sophisticated campaign intended to affect the outcome of the election.