Researchers found that the accounts targeting Arabic speakers used “very outdated' tactics.
Twitter suspended hundreds of accounts last year that were suspected of links to Iran. By Siobhán O'Grady Siobhán O'Grady WorldViews reporter Email Bio Follow April 3 at 1:00 AM In August last year, Twitter announced that it had suspended hundreds of accounts that appeared to be linked to Iran. The reason? Twitter said the accounts had engaged in “coordinated manipulation.”
In an intensive study of the Arabic-language tweets the Oxford Internet Institute released on Wednesday, researchers determined that “the most widely shared websites included in Arabic tweets push an Iranian political narrative, including criticism of Saudi Arabia and support of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.”
Elswah told The Washington Post she believes her research “is the first to prove that there is an Iranian interference in the Arab world that is taking place on Twitter.” Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, intense scrutiny has emerged over Russian disinformation campaigns on social media. Elswah said she found that when comparing potential Iranian interference to Russian interference, Russian accounts are more advanced and “more creative."
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