KIEV: On the same day that Russia launched a military operation against Ukraine, news emerged that Twitter had disabled many accounts of researchers who were sharing footage and other information about the invasion.
Several researchers who shared Russia-Ukraine information on Twitter had their accounts blocked without warning.
"I'm back after being locked out twice in the last 24 hours. "@Twitter needs to do something against these locks now," said Oliver Alexander, an analyst with open-source intelligence (OSINT). "First time for a post debunking the "foiled sabotage / gas assault" and second time for a post debunking the "Ukrainian attack into Russia."
As per tweets from Glen and a message posted by another OSINT organisation, OSINT researcher Kyle Glen was likewise shut out of his account for 12 hours. According to The Verge, security analyst Oliver Alexander claimed to have been locked out of his account twice in 24 hours. More account bans were noted in a Twitter thread maintained by Nick Waters, an analyst at the pioneering OSINT organisation Bellingcat.
A Twitter spokeswoman said in a statement that action against these accounts was conducted in error and was not part of a coordinated campaign.
"We're analysing these steps as quickly as possible, and we've already proactively restored access to a number of affected accounts." The accusations that the inaccuracies were the result of a concerted bot campaign or mass reporting are false, the company spokesperson added.
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