Twitter has disclosed its permanent removal of 10,112 accounts across six countries. These accounts were found to be actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest around sensitive political issues. They include a network of 271 accounts from UAE and Egypt, another group of over 4,000 accounts operating from the UAE, 259 in Spain, 200,000 fake accounts from China around the Hong Kong protests. Why this matters: These disclosures mark nearly one year of Twitter's efforts to identify and remove accounts spreading political misinformation, something which impacts democratic processes and elections. Like Facebook, Twitter has made several such disclosures over the past year, including its removal of 4,500 accounts out of Russia and 4,700 accounts connected to the Iranian state, and nearly over 900 accounts from China targeting the Hong Kong protests. What they removed, from where, and why: UAE and Egypt: Removed a network of 271 accounts from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, backed by DotDev, a private technology company operating in UAE and Egypt. These accounts were targeting Qatar and Iran, and supported the Saudi government. Twitter has also suspended all of DotDev's accounts. Another 4,248 accounts operating from UAE targeting Yemen and Qatar have been removed. These accounts posed as other people and tweeted about the Yemeni Civil War and the Houthi Movement. Saudi Arabia: A group of 6 accounts connected with Saudi state media, posing as independent journalistic outlets, but promoting the Saudi government's narrative, were removed. Twitter has also removed the account of former Saudi…
