Twitter suspended 58 M suspicious accounts last year

Twitter suspended at NEW YORK least 58 million user accounts in the final three months of 2017, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

The figure highlights the company’s newly aggressive stance against malicious or suspicious accounts in the wake of Russian disinformation efforts during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

Last week, Twitter confirmed a Washington Post report that it had suspended 70 million accounts in May and June. The huge number of suspensions raises questions as to whether the crackdown could affect Twitter’s user growth and if the company should have warned investors earlier.

The new data sheds light on Twitter’s attempt to improve “information quality” on its service, its term for countering fake accounts, bots, disinformation and other malicious occurrences. Such activity was rampant on Twitter and other social-media networks during the 2016 campaign, much of it originating with the Internet Research Agency, a since-shuttered Russian “troll farm” implicated in election-disruption efforts by the U.S. special counsel and congressional investigations.

Twitter maintains that most of the suspended accounts had been dormant for at least a month.

Following the Post report, Twitter’s stock dropped sharply, but shares recovered somewhat after its CFO took to Twitter to reassure investors. The stock has been on an upswing lately, and more than doubled its value in the past year.