The social media platform did not assign any reason for this action.
New Delhi: Accounts of Twitter users, who were sharing live information, including pictures and videos of Russian troops invading Ukraine, were suspended by social media platform Twitter without any reason being assigned for this action. This step by Twitter has been termed by users as an attempt to “stifle sharing of information”.
The suspended accounts were being operated by academic and independent researchers who are into collecting and collating Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). These accounts were one of the primary sources for the general public across the world to see the situation in Ukraine and even for the electronic media to understand what is happening in Ukraine.
One such account that was locked was “newsburko” that is operated by a Ukraine-based journalist Roman Burko. Similarly, the account of Kyle Glen who is a cofounder of “conflictnews”, a Twitter handle that focuses on disseminating conflict-related information, too, was blocked.
A popular OSINT handle—Osinttechnical—said that these accounts, which were showing the event as they were unfolding in Ukraine, were being suspended or muted due to “mass reporting” by Russian entities so that they can be stopped from sharing the live updates for the world audience. Washington-based economist and regulatory hacker, Eli, while commenting on the developments, said: “Twitter needs to do a better job of protecting these OSINT accounts. Russian controlled accounts are reporting them for fake violations and Twitter has been algorithmically suspending them for 12 hours. Twitter is part of the battlefield now.” As per a Twitter thread compiled by Nick Waters, an analyst at Bellingcat, a OSINT organization, multiple accounts reporting the developing situation in Ukraine were locked down for a minimum 12 hours. Twitter also locked out prominent OSINT expert, Oliver Alexander for his tweet that talked about the armed vehicle that was being used in Ukraine. The account of Switzerland-based OSINT platform—NeuroneIntelligence—was also blocked for reporting events from Ukraine. Also banned were prominent Argentinian OSINT account, MundoEConflicto, and Brazil-based OSINT account, NoticiaeGuerra. Later, all these accounts were restored. No suspension of accounts of Indian users has been reported so far.
Commenting on these developments, a Twitter spokesperson said that the social media platform was focused on improving the safety of its service, including identifying and disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information and to advance the speed and scale of its enforcement. “We’ve been proactively monitoring for emerging narratives that are violative of our policies, and, in this instance, we took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error. We’re expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts. The claims that the errors were a coordinated bot campaign or the result of mass reporting is inaccurate,” the spokesperson said. According to Yoel Roth, head of site integrity at Twitter, “Twitter does not trigger automated enforcements based on report volume, ever, exactly because of how easily gamed that would be.”