On Thursday, Twitter (NYSE:$TWTR) reported that it had found hundreds of accounts that have ties to Russian operatives. The social network giant has connected over 200 accounts to 470 pages and accounts on Facebook which have ties to a Russian troll farm that is charged with interfering with last year’s presidential election.
The San Francisco-based company also said that three accounts from the Kremlin-linked news site RT had spent a total of $274,100 on ads last year, targeting United States followers of the “mainstream media.” They also promoted RT tweets about news stories, Twitter said.
Twitter met with congressional investigators Thursday as part of a probe into Russian interference during last year’s campaign and how they manipulated tech giants like Facebook (NASDAQ:$FB) and Alphabet, Inc. (NASDAQ:$GOOGL).
Additionally, Bots also played a defining role in the 2016 election and Twitter said it took action on thousands of tweets and accounts that tried to interfere with voting rights. However, these accounts did not have “obvious Russian origin” Twitter said in Thursday’s blog post.
Facebook, through its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has recently admitted that fake news was used its platform to influence the election after denying the claim originally.
In after-hours trade, Twitter stock edged down less than 1% to $16.84.
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