Twitter says it uncovered millions of tweets, images and videos linked to disinformation accounts backed by Russia and Iran. And it's releasing all of that content to the public.
The company announced Wednesday it's publishing data sets that include over 10 million tweets from thousands of accounts affiliated with the Russia-linked Internet Research Agency or Iran. The data sets also include more than 2 million images, GIFs, videos and Periscope broadcasts.
U.S. intelligence experts concluded that the Internet Research Agency had some role in meddling in the 2016 election. Earlier this year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians connected to the IRA. Back in January, Twitter disclosed it detected content from misinformation campaigns on its platform.
But now, the company is releasing the posts themselves in the name of transparency, saying it wants to "enable independent academic research and investigation" and to "serve the public conversation."
Twitter says it doesn't expect information operations like these to go away, but independent analysis of their activity is a big step toward understanding the threats.
