Twitter said Thursday it has removed thousands of
accounts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia and Serbia that allegedly
took direction from governments or pushed pro-government content. “We removed
2,541 accounts in an Egypt-based network, known as the El Fagr network,” the
San Francisco-based tech firm posted in a series of tweets. “The media group
created inauthentic accounts to amplify messaging critical of Iran, Qatar and
Turkey.
Information we gained externally indicates it was
taking direction from the Egyptian government.” El Fagr’s online managing
editor Mina Salah vehemently pushed back. “Yes we are loyal to the state but we
don’t receive instructions from anyone. We’re merely defending our country and
its position is clear vis-a-vis Iran, Qatar and Turkey,” he told AFP.
He said Twitter was effectively censoring the
newspaper’s content and that journalists were banned from even creating new
personal accounts. The platform also deleted 5,350 accounts from regional
heavyweight Saudi Arabia for “amplifying content praising Saudi leadership, and
critical of Qatar and Turkish activity in Yemen”. Rights groups have accused
the conservative kingdom of spying on dissidents and critical online users on
Twitter.
The Saudi-linked accounts were run out of the
kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, where Twitter’s Middle East headquarters
is based, as well as Egypt. After an internal investigation, Twitter also
removed clusters of accounts in Honduras allegedly propagating pro-government
content, in Serbia promoting the “ruling party and its leader” and Indonesian
accounts pushing information targeting the West Papuan independence movement.
Earlier this week, it removed two of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s
tweets questioning quarantine measures aimed at containing the novel
coronavirus on the grounds that they violated the social network’s rules.
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