Twitter has removed as many as 5,000 bot accounts tied to a network amplifying a message denouncing the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a "RussiaGate" hoax, media report said.
Most of the accounts had few posts -- as less as three. However, all the accounts frequently retweeted content from an account nameed @TheGlobus (previously 'Arabian Veritas'), according to information shared with NBC News by researchers who uncovered the network and analysis by Foreign Policy Research Institute senior fellow Clint Watts.
"We suspended a network of accounts and others associated with it for engaging in platform manipulation -- a violation of the Twitter Rules. An investigation into the network is still ongoing but no determination has yet been made about who was behind the campaign," a Twitter spokeswoman was quoted as saying by the ARSTechnica.
Nearly all of accounts attacked the media for using the "Russiagate hoax" to undermine US President Donald Trump and often lifted language from other pro-Trump accounts' tweets without attribution, according to NBC.
One of the tweets distributed by the bot network on the micro-blogging site read: "The people screaming about Trump working for Russia are the same people demanding social media censor 'misinformation', Stop listening to these people."
--IANS
ksc/vd
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content