*WASHINGTON: *Twitter said on Friday it has closed down thousands ofaccounts across the world for spreading fake news as well as pro-governmentpropaganda.
Accounts coming from China seeking to sow discord among protesters in HongKong were closed down, as were accounts amplifying a pro-Saudi messagecoming from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates directed at Qatar and Yemen,Twitter said.
Fake news accounts were also suspended in Spain and Ecuador.
The information release is part of the company’s push to improveunderstanding of how its platform is used by state actors to manipulatepublic opinion.
Twitter said they had identified 4,302 accounts based in China “attemptingto sow discord about the protest movement in Hong Kong.”
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This follows the identification in August of more than 200,000 fakeaccounts in China engaged in fueling public discord in Hong Kong.
The announcement follows Facebook’s removing fake accounts based in Egypt,Saudi Arabia and the UAE last month for posting misinformation aboutregional hotspots including Libya, Sudan and Yemen.
