Twitter suspends accounts

WASHINGTON: Twitter said yesterday it had suspended about 200 Russianlinked accounts as it probed online efforts to meddle with the 2016 US election, but an influential Democratic senator slammed its steps as insufficient.

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, summoned Twitter officials to testify yesterday as part of a broad investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. Facebook faced a similar grilling earlier this month.

Lawmakers in both parties suspect social networks may have played a big role in Moscow’s attempts to spread propaganda, sow political discord in the US and help elect President Donald Trump. Moscow denies any such activity, and Trump has denied any collusion.

Twitter also briefed the House of Representatives Intelligence Com mittee yesterday.

Warner said Twitter officials had not answered many questions about Russian use of the platform and it was still subject to foreign manipulation.

The company’s presentation to the Intelligence Committee ‘‘showed an enormous lack of understanding from the Twitter team of how serious this issue is’’, Warner said. He took umbrage at what he said was Twitter’s decision to largely confine its review to accounts linked to fake profiles already spotted by Facebook.

Twitter said it had identified and removed 22 accounts directly linked to about 500 fake Facebook pages or profiles tied to Russia and that it unearthed an additional 179 accounts that were otherwise related.

Twitter declined to comment when asked about Warner’s comments. — Reuters