Twitter removed 32K+ accounts engaged in propaganda linked to Russia, China, and Turkey, describing the accounts as “state-linked information operations”
- Accounts spread ‘deceptive’ claims about Hong Kong politics — Russia-linked accounts supported Kremlin, attacked dissidents
By this June the scale had jumped again: alongside today's 32K+ removals spanning Russia, China, and Turkey, Twitter reported shutting down more than 170K accounts tied to the Chinese government pushing deceptive narratives on COVID-19 and Hong Kong. What was once a midterms cleanup has become a standing counter-disinformation operation covering an expanding list of states.
First-order effects
Russia-, China-, and Turkey-linked networks lose their distribution overnight, including accounts that supported the Kremlin and attacked dissidents — the first time Turkey appears among publicly named state-linked operations in Twitter's removals.
The targets of these campaigns — notably Hong Kong protesters and Kremlin dissidents — see coordinated amplification of hostile narratives drop as the account clusters are dismantled.
Second-order effects
The August 2019 playbook — pairing a named state campaign with mass preemptive suspensions of dormant 'spammy' accounts — is now standard practice, forcing state operators to rebuild networks from scratch rather than reactivate them.
Rival platforms face pressure to match Twitter's public attribution-and-purge cadence, since staying silent on state-linked operations increasingly reads as tolerating them.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, platform takedown disclosures become a de facto intelligence channel — governments and researchers mapping state information operations through corporate enforcement reports rather than their own investigations.
The widening roster of named states, now including Turkey, points toward information operations being treated as a normalized great-power and regional-power activity, with platforms as the primary enforcement layer in the absence of formal rules.
The trend: Platform moderation of state influence campaigns is scaling from reactive, election-driven cleanups to continuous, preemptively attributed network takedowns against an expanding set of governments.
Disclosing networks of state-linked information operations we've removed
@twittersafety
@twittersafety on x
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://blog.twitter.com/..…
@damiancollins
Damian Collins on x
It's interesting to see where the state sponsored misinformation is coming from. From 32,242 acccounts removed yesterday by @twitter 23,750 are linked to China @infotagion https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@stanford_cyber
@stanford_cyber on x
Thousands of accounts & millions of tweets, including #Covid19 propaganda, pro-Putin cheerleading, and support for Turkey's involvement in Syria. Excellent analysis from @Stanford_Cyber's Internet Observatory with @noUpside @vanessa_molter & @carlymil 👇 https://cyber.fsi.stanford…
@noupside
Renee DiResta on x
🚨🧵 Today Twitter announced a takedown of a network of 23,750 accounts attributed to the PRC 🇨🇳, with technical indicators linking the operation to the network suspended in August 2019. SIO participated in the analysis. Report: https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/ ...
@yannikouts
Yannis Koutsomitis on x
Twitter deletes thousands of Turkish troll accounts and Erdoğan's communications director accuses @Twitter of trying to protect terrorism. Huh. https://blog.twitter.com/... #Turkey ↨ https://twitter.com/...
@ecmclaughlin
Elizabeth C. McLaughlin on x
Wow. And this is why being here, no matter how hellish it sometimes may be, is way better than being on Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
@slpng_giants
@slpng_giants on x
Normal platform. https://twitter.com/...
@societyofhonor
JoeAm on x
This is big. Twitter is removing accounts from China, Russia, others that are essentially trolling platforms pushing agenda, not unique individuals engaging in dialogue. Kudos to Twitter for identifying these accounts and taking them out. https://twitter.com/...
@californiapanda
Steven Cheung on x
Important to also note— according to @nytimes— that fake accounts from China “amplify pro-Beijing messages” while trying to discredit Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@nakashimae
Ellen Nakashima on x
Twitter removes more than 23,000 accounts it says are part of a Chinese Communist Party information operation. Aim is to undermine power of Hong Kong protests and restore lost legitimacy over handling of covid19. @annafifield @lizzadwoskin https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@nakashimae
Ellen Nakashima on x
Fergus Hanson of @ASPI_org: “While the Chinese Communist Party won't allow the Chinese people to use Twitter, it is happy to use it covertly to sow propaganda and disinformation internationally.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@jack
@jack on x
Disclosing 32,242 accounts to our archive of state-linked information operations https://twitter.com/...
@opdeatheaters
@opdeatheaters on x
Wow thanks @Jack! We have been begging for this for YEARS! #opDeathEaters https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@yoyoel
Yoel Roth on x
Grateful for our team's work, focus, and for the collaboration with our partners at @ASPI_ICPC and @StanfordIO. Detecting and disrupting disinformation around the world is critically important to us all. Full details on today's disclosure are on our blog: https://blog.twitter.com…