China, Russia and Turkey: the Twitter cleaners

Twitter has started a heavy spring cleaning between its accounts, eliminating in one fell swoop tens of thousands of fake accounts that the social network would have linked to initiatives of state origin: 32,242 accounts have been put on the door since they are directly connected to the propaganda coming from countries such as China, Russia and Turkey. Italy is not in the way - for now - but in the past our country and our politics have been related to Russian propaganda: for now we are content to understand what certain state machines are able to set up, waiting to understand what someone in Italy may have tried to trigger.

Russia, China and Turkey with tweets Are they just social networks? Are they just twittering? Are they just ends in themselves and isolated in the virtual world? Quite the opposite: they are small pieces of a complex geopolitical battle that is being fought between our fingers, on our displays, between the meshes of our online discussions. A battle with little hearts and retweets that inflate certain topics to cover up others, to divert opinions and to motivate ideological aggregations. The resulting image is that of a Risiko with tweets, with targeted attacks and extremely elaborate strategies to give shape to partisan geopolitical interests. Twitter's attempt to relieve the burden of politics is increasingly intense and after Trump it has now fallen to the prime enemies of the US President. In short, a bipartisan effort to return to being a communication tool and not a cross propaganda club.

But it does not end here. In addition to the 32.242 account removed, are the light more accounts (there are over 150 thousand people, only those related to chinese propaganda, the aim of which is only to revive the original messages and gonfiarne visibility and popularity. Accounts with small follower, the activity of which is the auto is simply to inflate the metrics of the account objective , working with automations specially designed to work around the dynamics of the social network. What you configure is a real organization made up of bot and leader bot wingmen , each designed for a specific purpose, and all coordinated to bring online a specific narrative, a specific topic or a specific deviation with respect to the debate in the act.

We're disclosing new state-linked information operations to our public archive — the only one of its kind in the industry. Originating from the People's Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and Turkey, all associated accounts and content have been removed. https://t.co/obRqr96iYm

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) June 11, 2020



Twitter wanted to bring this process forward in a transparent manner, bringing online the information related to the account charged with esplicitarne role, nature, origin and content. A small step for the social network, a great step for the health of the ecosystem of the social that gravitates inside. The initiative is, however, a cry of alarm and unprecedented: the political propaganda of some states is permeating heavily in the public debate (and with ever greater forcefulness has moved its center of gravity on social networks), inoculating the thus theorems bislacchi and complottismo of the varied nature of the bubble to bubble, person to person. Part of the activities analyzed would also be relative to the Covid, establishing a specific narrative, that he take away the suspicion and accusations from China.

it Is a dynamic that is important to know in order to understand all of the diverted may be the image provided by one account, from a numerical evaluation of a tweet or the popularity of an account: the work of the bot not only has never slowed down, but it has also aged extremely profitable.