WASHINGTON:Twitter has shut down thousands of accounts worldwide for spreadingmisinformation, including some artificially amplifying pro-Saudi messaging aspart of a regional propaganda war. The move affected pro-Saudi accounts comingfrom Egypt and the United Arab Emirates directed at Qatar and Yemen, Twittersaid, as well as others from China seeking to sow discord among protesters inHong Kong.
Additional fakeaccounts were suspended in Spain and Ecuador, Twitter's safety team said. Themove is the latest in a series of actions by social media giants such asFacebook and Twitter cracking down on manipulation, often by state-controlledentities disguising their identities. It follows similar moves by Facebook lastmonth removing fake accounts based in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE forposting misinformation about Middle East hotspots and others involved in"coordinated inauthentic behavior" focused on Hong Kong.
Royal Saudiaccount canceled
Twitter removed273 accounts working in concert in "a multi-faceted informationoperation" to target Saudi rivals Qatar and Iran among other countries, aswell as amplify pro-Saudi government messaging. These accounts were "created and managed" DotDev, a technologycompany based in the UAE and Egypt. DotDev did not respond to an AFP requestfor comment.
Saudi Arabia,along with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, has enforced an economic boycott ofQatar since June 2017, accusing the Gulf nation of links to extremist groupsand being too close to Iran. Twitter also notably shut down the account ofSaudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani. The close confidante of PrinceMohammed bin Salman, who ran Riyadh's media center and managed an electronicarmy unabashedly defending its image, was implicated in the killing ofWashington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 but was neverformally charged.
Twitter alsosuspended a separate group of 4,258 accounts operating from the UAE, withmessaging mainly targeting Qatar and Yemen. "These accounts were oftenemploying false personae and tweeting about regional issues," such as thewar in Yemen and main agitators in the conflict, Iran-linked Houthi rebels,Twitter's statement said.
The UAE is a keypartner in the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen in afive-year conflict that has devastated the country. Six accounts linked toSaudi Arabia's state-run media were also flagged by Twitter for being"engaged in coordinated efforts to amplify messaging that was beneficialto the Saudi government," Twitter said. Twitter noted the accounts hadposed as "independent journalistic outlets while tweeting narrativesfavorable to the Saudi government".
Hong Kong proteststargeted
Twitteridentified 4,302 accounts based in China "attempting to sow discord aboutthe protest movement in Hong Kong." This follows the identification inAugust of more than 200,000 fake accounts in China engaged in fueling publicdiscord in Hong Kong. Twitter and Facebook are both banned in mainland China.Hong Kong has seen months of unrest as citizens protest what they say is anerosion of freedoms under Beijing's tightening grip. While Beijing has notintervened directly, its powerful media machine has steadily ramped up a war ofwords.
The moves tosilence Chinese-run accounts on Twitter and Facebook were greeted with protestsand claims of hypocrisy in the mainland, with posters taking to theauthorized-and tightly controlled-Weibo platform. Twitter said it removed 259accounts operated by the conservative Partido Popular that were "activefor a relatively short period, and consisted primarily of fake accountsengaging in spamming or retweet behavior to increase engagement." And inEcuador, 1,019 accounts tied to the ruling center-left PAIS Alliance"composed largely of fake accounts" were deleted.
Facebook suspendsapps
In anotherdevelopment, Facebook said it suspended "tens of thousands" of appson its platform as a result of a privacy practices review launched following ascandal involving Cambridge Analytica. The review started in 2018 afterrevelations that the political consultancy hijacked personal data on millionsof Facebook users, and it included attorneys, external investigators, datascientists, engineers, policy specialists and others, according to a Facebookstatement.
The suspensionsare "not necessarily an indication that these apps were posing a threat topeople," said vice president of partnerships Ime Archibong, adding thatsome developers "did not respond to our request for information."Archibong said the investigation "has addressed millions of apps. Ofthose, tens of thousands have been suspended for a variety of reasons while wecontinue to investigate."
The suspectedapps were associated with about 400 developers, and many of the softwareprograms were still in testing phases, according to Facebook. The huge socialnetwork became the subject of intense scrutiny after acknowledging in 2018 thatCambridge Analytica misappropriated personal data on tens of millions ofFacebook users as part of its work for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Subsequently,Facebook said it would review all apps on the platform to determine how theyused data and if they respect its privacy rules. "In a few cases, we havebanned apps completely," Archibong said. Bans can be caused by violationsincluding inappropriately sharing data obtained from Facebook or making datapublicly available without protecting people's identities, according to thesocial network.
App crackdown
"One appbanned was called myPersonality, which shared information with researchers andcompanies with only limited protections in place, and then refused our requestto participate in an audit," Archibong said. A year ago, Facebook said ithad banned some 400 apps including one called myPersonality, which according toArchibong "shared information with researchers and companies with onlylimited protections in place," and refused to accept an audit.
Facebook said arecent agreement on privacy with the US Federal Trade Commission - whichincluded a record $5 billion fine -- calls for additional oversight on appdevelopers. It "requires developers to annually certify compliance withour policies," Archibong said. "Any developer that doesn't go alongwith these requirements will be held accountable." Facebook earlier thisyear filed a lawsuit against South Korean data analytics firm Rankwave inCalifornia to make sure it isn't breaking the leading social network's rules.
Revampingcontrols
Along withslapping Facebook with a record fine for data protection violations, thesettlement in July called for Facebook to create a privacy committee within itsboard of directors to be appointed by an independent nominating committee. Thiswould end "unfettered control" of decisions on privacy by Facebook'schief executive Mark Zuckerberg, the FTC statement said. Facebook also will berequired to conduct privacy reviews of every new or modified product, serviceor practice before it is implemented, including for its WhatsApp and Instagramservices.- Agencies