Twitter: 677K+ U.S. Users Engaged With Fake Russian Accounts

More than 677,000 Twitter users liked, retweeted, or followed an account linked to the Russian-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) during the 2016 election, according to a Twitter report published Friday updating the findings they presented to Congress. In their new analysis, the social-media giant found that 3,814 IRA accounts posted “175,993 Tweets, approximately 8.4% of which were election-related.” They also identified a total of 50,258 accounts to be Russian-linked automated bots that were actively tweeting during the election period. Twitter will send 677,775 email notifications to everyone who engaged with an IRA account or tweet during the election period to stay “consistent with [their] commitment to transparency.”