Twitter removed some accounts originating in Iran, Russia and Venezuela that targeted US midterm election

Twitter revealed that it had removed thousands of malicious accounts thought to have originated in Iran, Russia and Venezuela for spreading disinformation online, including previously undisclosed efforts to target the 2018 US midterm election. In the months before American voters went to the polls, some of these campaigns with foreign ties sought to stoke social and political unrest around hot-button issues, the company said, echoing tactics that social-media companies have spent two years trying to counter. The approach had been adopted by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), an organization with ties to the Russian government, two years earlier in an attempt to steer the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Twitter said it removed 418 accounts thought to have originated in Russia before Election Day last November but declined to specify exactly when and said it could not link the efforts definitively to the IRA. Carlos Monje, Jr., Twitter's director of public policy, said foreign attempts to manipulate Twitter were “far less” prevalent than in 2016.