Turkey slams Twitter for removing thousands of accounts

Turkey has slammed Twitter for removing thousands of accounts based in the country that supported President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying these were not "fake" profiles designed to support the president.

Twitter has purged 7,340 accounts in Turkey, saying these were employing coordinated inauthentic activity primarily targeted at domestic audiences within the country.

"This has demonstrated yet again that Twitter is no mere social media company, but a propaganda machine with certain political and ideological inclinations," presidency communications director Fahrettin Altun was quoted as saying in an Al Jazeera report on Saturday.

He said documents cited to support Twitter's decision were unscientific, biased and politically motivated.

Turkey has blocked access to Twitter, YouTube and online encyclopaedia Wikipedia in the past.

On Friday, Twitter disclosed 32,242 accounts to its archive of state-linked information operations - the only one of its kind in the industry - linked to China, Russia and Turkey.

"Based on our analysis of the network's technical indicators and account behaviours, the collection of fake and compromised accounts was being used to amplify political narratives favourable to the AK Parti, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan," said Twitter.

Twitter also disclosed it has removed a fake network comprising over 1.73 lakh accounts that were linked to a state-backed campaign in China.

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