Tumblr confirms, suspends 84 Russian-linked accounts

MANILA, Philippines – Tumblr announced on Friday, March 23 it had uncovered a list of accounts it believes to be linked to “state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda campaigns.”

“Last fall, we uncovered 84 Tumblr accounts linked to the Russian government through the Internet Research Agency (IRA). These accounts were being used as part of a disinformation campaign leading up to the 2016 U.S. election,” Tumblr wrote in a statement.

According to The Guardian, Tumblr has already notified authorities, suspended all 84 of the listed accounts, and deleted the posts with the help of the US Justice Department. The social networking and blogging site said it discovered the plot in late 2017, which led to the indictment of 13 individuals with ties to the Russia-based IRA last February.

Tumblr said they can now break their silence, disclose what happened, and let its users know what precautionary measures they are planning to take in the future.

Their first safety measure is to email “anyone who liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed an IRA-linked account with the list of usernames they engaged with.”

Besides this, Tumblr wants to be transparent to its users by keeping a public record of usernames they’ve linked with the IRA or other disinformation campaigns.

They’re also letting users decide whether to keep or delete the reblog chains of the original IRA posts since they were created by real Tumblr users.

This announcement comes in the midst of the data breach controversy currently surrounding Facebook, who in similar fashion had to deal with Russian-linked accounts spreading false information and promoting propaganda. – Rappler.com