Twitter deactivates 486 accounts originating from Iran and Russia: Report

Micro-blogging site Twitter has released a new feature for Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).

Twitter announced on 28 August that it has suspended 486 accounts in that were targeted to manipulate people in Britain, Latin America, Middle East and the United States.

According to a report from Economic Times, Twitter stated in a statement that "Since our initial suspensions last week, we have continued our investigation, further building our understanding of these networks.

"In addition, we have suspended an additional 486 accounts for violating the policies outlined last week. This brings the total to 770,"

According to a tweet from the official Twitter Safety page, these accounts are suspected to have shared divisive commentary.

Fewer than 100 of the 770 suspended accounts claimed to be located in the U.S. and many of these were sharing divisive social commentary. On average, these 100 Tweeted 867 times, were followed by 1, 268 accounts, and were less than a year old. Examples below. pic.twitter.com/LQhbvFjxSo

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— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) August 27, 2018

The Washington Post reported reported in July that Twitter suspended more than one million accounts a day in recent months to reduce the flow of misinformation on the platform.

Twitter and other social media platforms such as Facebook have been under scrutiny by U.S. lawmakers and international regulators for doing too little to prevent the spread of false content.

The companies have been taking steps such as deleting user accounts, introducing updates and actively monitoring content to help users avoid being a victim to fake content.

The report noted that Facebook and Twitter have also deactivated several accounts from originated in Iran and Russia. Facebook also took off 652 such accounts pages and groups for "coordinated inauthentic behaviour".