MANILA, Philippines – Twitter told some 1.4 million of its users that they saw or otherwised engaged with Russian propaganda or content made by Russian trolls during the 2016 US elections.

A post on Twitter’s blog, updated on Wednesday, January 31, said it expanded the number of people who were “potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).” The number, however, may not represent everyone who saw the content, the company admitted.

Twitter explained it informed the users based on their interactions, such as if a US-based account was one that directly engaged with or was actively following one of 3,814 IRA accounts.

Users who also opted out of most updates from Twitter and may not have seen initial notices were also informed as a matter of course. 

Recode added Twitter did not send alerts to people who saw Russian troll tweets but did not interact with them. It also did not send notices to users who responded to tweets from some 50,000 Russian bots that tweeted election-related content around November 2016.

The news follows Twitter’s report earlier in January, where they said the number of Russia-linked accounts sending off tweets was more widespread than the company realized. Twitter also admitted back in September that around 2,000 ads were placed on Twitter in 2016 from a Russian media group it suspected was trying to interfere with the US elections. – Rappler.com