Reddit Identifies 1,000 Russian Accounts After Daily Beast Report

Reddit on Tuesday announced that it had banned 944 accounts it believes are associated with Russia’s Internet Research Agency and said those accounts would remain up now for transparency but soon be taken down. The move came more than a month after The Daily Beast exclusively reported that the Kremlin-linked “troll farm” had used online agitators on Reddit to interfere in the American presidential election in 2016, with posts linking to Internet Research Agency-backed websites like BlackMattersUs.com receiving thousands of upvotes on subreddits like r/The_Donald and r/HillaryForPrison. The Daily Beast also exclusively reported in early March that the site had been slow-walking the Senate and House inquiries into Russian interference in the American presidential election. In Tuesday’s post, titled “Reddit’s 2017 transparency report and suspect account findings,” the Conde Nast-owned website said that “In the spirit of transparency, we’re going to share with you what we shared with [congressional investigators] earlier today.” It continued: “We still have a lot of room to improve, and we intend to remain vigilant.”