Twitter announced the closure of 7,340 accounts linked to the ruling AKP Party. The collection of fake and compromised accounts, Twitter said in a statement, was being used to amplify political narratives favorable to the AK Parti, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan.

 

The statement continued: "Detected in early 2020, this network of accounts was employing coordinated inauthentic activity, which was primarily targeted at domestic audiences within Turkey. Based on our analysis of the network’s technical indicators and account behaviors, was being used to amplify political narratives favorable to the AK Parti, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan."

 

Twitter added: "Technical signals point to the network being associated with the youth wing of the party and a centralized network that maintained a significant number of compromised accounts. As a result, the network we’re disclosing today includes several compromised accounts associated with organizations critical of President Erdogan and the Turkish Government. These compromised accounts have been repeated targets of account hacking and takeover efforts by the state actors identified above. The broader network was also used for commercial activities, such as cryptocurrency-related spam."

 

Twitter also closed 23,750 accounts linked to the Chinese government and 1,152 accounts linked to the Russian government.