Twitter is emailing 677,775 people in the US who interacted with Russian propaganda 2016 election
- Twitter will email 677,775 users in the US to let them know that they interacted with Russian propaganda during the 2016 US presidential election.
- All of those users either followed an account, liked or retweeted content associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA) - an organization associated with Russian propaganda efforts.
- In total, Twitter believes there were 3,814 unique accounts run by the IRA.
Twitter will email 677,775 people in the United States to let them know that they interacted with Russian propaganda during the 2016 presidential election, the company said in a blog post Friday.
Emails will go out to anyone who followed an account, retweeted, or liked a Tweet put out by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), an organization believed to be connected to Russian government propaganda efforts.
Twitter's role in Russian election propaganda has been well known since fall, when the company testified in front of the US Senate, alongside Google and Facebook. But the company released fresh numbers on Friday as part of its commitment to update congressional committees and the public on findings from its on-going investigation into how the platform was used to influence to election.
Twitter did not describe what its forthcoming emails to the roughly 688,000 users would say. But the company showed a couple of examples of tweets promoted by the Russia-linked IRA:
Twitter now believes that there were a total of 3,814 accounts associated with the IRA, which posted a total of 175,993 tweets. Only 8.4% of those tweets were election related, according to the company.
All of those accounts were eventually suspended for violating Twitter's terms of service, the company said.
If you or someone you know has been contacted by Twitter about Russian propaganda, please email Becky Peterson at bpeterson@businessinsider.com.