Twitter blocked many thousands of fake accounts on Thursday. They were used to spread propaganda on behalf of authorities in countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia.
The accounts also included a Serbian influence campaign.
Twitter removed, among other things, 2,541 accounts from the Egyptian network El Fagr. They spread criticism of Iran, Qatar and Turkey. These are countries with which Egypt is regularly at odds.
According to Twitter, the network supposedly acted on behalf of the Egyptian government. Last year, Facebook also removed hundreds of pages from El Fagr.
Furthermore, Twitter took 5,350 accounts offline that glorified the Saudi authorities and criticized Qatar and Turkey. An employee of the Honduras government single-handedly created 3,104 fake accounts, which retweeted every tweet from the president.
Indonesia used 795 fake accounts to spread propaganda against the independence movement in West Papua, according to Twitter.
Finally, the messaging service blocked 8,558 accounts promoting the ruling party in Serbia.
