Twitter shut down 201 accounts tied to Russian operatives.

201 accounts closed, tied to operatives who posted thousands of political ads

WASHINGTON» Twitter has shut down 201 accounts that were tied to the same Russian operatives who posted thousands of political ads on Facebook, the company told congressional investigators Thursday and revealed in a blog in the afternoon.

The company also found three Russia Today accounts — which it said it believes are linked to the Kremlin — that spent $274,100 in ads on Twitter in 2016.

The meeting between the company and congressional investigators is part of a widening government probe into how Russian operatives used Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media platforms to sow division and disinformation during the 2016 campaign. Those companies are under increasing pressure from Capitol Hill to investigate Russian meddling on their platforms and are facing the possibility of new regulations that could impact their massive advertising businesses.

The Twitter accounts, which were taken down in the past month, were associated with 470 accounts and pages that Facebook last month said came from the International Research Agency, a Russia-connected troll farm. Twitter said the groups on Facebook had 22 corresponding Twitter accounts. Twitter then found an additional 179 accounts linked to those 22.

One congressional investigator has said that the Facebook accounts from the International Research Agency are likely just the “tip of the iceberg.”

“There’s plenty of evidence that Russian intelligence services have been on Twitter for years and have used Twitter to amplify messages and inserted lines of attack in ways that got amplified by mainstream and partisan media,” said Alex Howard, deputy director of the Sunlight Foundation. “We need to think very carefully about what role we want these companies to have in our debate — and, since these platforms largely regulate themselves, what kind of accountability we want them to have.”