Kacper Pempel/Reuters
Twitter announced Wednesday that it’s releasing an archive of postings from the more than 4,000 accounts that have been linked to “potential information operations” since 2016, to aid in academic research and investigations into attempted influence campaigns. In a press release, the company noted that it had previously disclosed more general details about the two campaigns it has identified—one from Russia’s Internet Research Agency and one that is suspected to have originated in Iran—but that it had only shared examples of the types of posts those troll accounts made. “In line with our strong principles of transparency and with the goal of improving understanding of foreign influence and information campaigns,” the company wrote, “we are releasing the full, comprehensive archives of the Tweets and media that are connected with these two previously disclosed and potentially state-backed operations on our service.”
That includes 3,481 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency and 770 accounts linked to the second campaign. Since 2009, those accounts published more than 10 million tweets, and 2 million images, GIFs, and Periscope broadcasts. “We strongly believe that this level of transparency can enhance the health of the public conversation on the internet,” the statement concluded. “This is our singular mission.”