The social media company has also listed safety advice for users in conflict zones.
As Russia mounts an invasion into Ukrainian territory, Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter, Inc. Report says that it accidentally suspended nearly a dozen accounts that were updating about the military’s movements.
A spokesperson for Twitter clarified that the outages were not due to a bot campaign or a coordinated attack on the accounts, as was widely speculated online.
Instead, the error was due to the company’s policies against manipulated and misleading media.
“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,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.
“We’re expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts.”
The news was first reported by Reuters.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity, tweeted on Wednesday that the suspended accounts weren’t due to mass reporting. That is a term used for a type of gaming the system used by groups including the Proud Boys to get Twitter accounts taken down.
Social Media As Open-Source Intelligence
Researchers monitoring updates about the conflict, which is material that is commonly known as open-source intelligence (OSINT), were among the first to notice the suspensions, or to find themselves suspended.
This was the case for OSINT researcher Kyle Glen, who was locked out of his account, as reported by The Verge. Security analyst Oliver Alexander said he was suspended twice in 24 hours.
Nick Waters, an analyst at the OSINT organization Bellingcat, shared a Twitter thread listing suspended accounts, including the news resource @conflicts.
Alexander also shared a screenshot of his suspension message, which did not detail the infraction.
The use of social media amid the beginning of an invasion has echoed the medium’s role in the Arab Spring.
Those protests in the Middle East and North Africa a decade ago were fueled in part by activists organizing by social media.
Twitter Shares Tips For Users In Conflict Zones
Twitter has shared advice for how users in conflict zones can best protect their safety and privacy.
The advice shared through Twitter Safety includes information about what makes a strong password, how to find out if your account has been hacked, setting up two-factor authentication, and how to restore a locked account.
The thread also shares safety advice about how to delete a Twitter account, changing tweets from public to private, and how to disable location settings on mobile devices.
The thread was posted in both English and Ukrainian.
