Twitter Admits There Was A Human Error In Suspending The OSINT Account That Reported The Movement Of Russian Troops Towards Ukraine

Several Twitter accounts reporting the movement of Russian troops to Ukraine were reportedly suspended. (photo: doc. twitter)

JAKARTA - Twitter finally admitted that it had made a mistake in suspending about a dozen accounts posting about Russia's military movements, Wednesday, February 23. Twitter also said the action was not due to a coordinated bot campaign or mass reporting of accounts by other users.

"We have been proactively monitoring emerging narratives that violate our policies, and, in this regard, we are taking enforcement action on a number of accounts for error," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. "We are reviewing this action immediately and have been proactively restoring access to a number of affected accounts."

Meanwhile, the owners and contributors of the OSINT account say that Twitter is now part of a "war zone" after suspending a number of accounts that spy on the movement of Russian soldiers.

Twitter needs to do a better job of protecting these OSINT accounts. Russian controlled accounts are reporting them for fake violations and Twitter has been algorithmically suspending them for 12 hours. Twitter is part of the battlefield now. https://t.co/1Ach9WQOsB

— Eli Dourado (@elidourado) February 23, 2022

A Twitter spokesperson said the misconduct was based on its rules against synthetic and manipulated media.

Twitter's head of website integrity, Yoel Roth, tweeted that the company was closely investigating what had happened but said mass reporting was not a factor.

"We never trigger automatic enforcement based on report volume, precisely because of how easy it is to do," he said.

We do not trigger automated enforcements based on report volume, ever, exactly because of how easily gamed that would be.

— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) February 23, 2022

On average, the accounts affected by the suspension were OSINT accounts that actively described the movements of Russian troops, by posting pictures and videos on their twitter accounts.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, February 23 and asked its citizens in Russia to flee or leave the country. On the other hand, Moscow has also begun evacuating its embassy in Kyiv in the latest ominous sign for a Ukraine that fears an all-out Russian military strike.