Twitter says 36,000 Russia-linked accounts posted election-related content – Reports

Twitter has discovered over 36,000 accounts linked to Russia that generated almost around 1.4 million election-related tweets during the U.S. 2016 election campaign.

According to a document on the testimony of Twitter’s acting general counsel Sean Edgett, obtained by the Business Insider on Tuesday, the platform “identified 36,746 accounts that generated automated, election-related content.

The platform also had at least one of the characteristics we used to associate an account with Russia,” that generated “approximately 1.4 million automated, election-related Tweets, which collectively received approximately 288 million impressions.

Edgett is set to appear before the U.S. Congress on Thursday.

According to the media, citing a source familiar with the document, the company studied the period of Sept.1 to Nov. 15, 2016, and analysed around 16 billion unique tweets, with the final review covering around 190 million election-related tweets.

The accounts represented in the report make 0.012 per cent of all the Twitter accounts that existed at the studied time frame, the media added, citing the document.

Twitter, as well as Facebook, is scheduled to appear before the U.S. congressional hearing to testify on Russia’s alleged meddling in 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Moscow has repeatedly refuted the claims of interfering in the election, calling them absurd and intended to defect public attention from real election fraud, as well as from other pressing domestic issues.