Twitter/X fails to act on Doppelganger-related notices

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On 3 September 2024, the Counter Disinformation Network published a report on the activities on X (formerly Twitter) and Meta of an influence operation likely linked to Doppelganger, a well-documented Russian disinformation network.

The report was a collective effort by 11 organizations, including Science Feedback, to analyze the key narratives spread by the network in six countries (4 EU members, Ukraine and the US) during the month of June 2024.

The consortium identified 1.366 tweets (originating from 1.366 unique accounts) posted by the campaign in June 2024. By the time of the report’s publication on 4 September 2024, approximately half of the accounts had been suspended, suggesting a proactive yet incomplete enforcement by X of its community guidelines.

Since then, it appears that X has left the network almost completely untouched: of the 663 tweets that were online as of the report’s publication on 4 September, 656 were still accessible as of 25 September. This lack of action comes despite X being made aware of the report ahead of its publication, as well as the report receiving wide coverage in European media (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4).

In line with the platform’s own community guidelines as well as its obligations under the Digital Services Act, which requires inter alia that platforms mitigate systemic online harms stemming from their services, the Counter Disinformation Network was expecting X to suspend all inauthentic accounts and remove their posts.

X’s lack of action on these flags adds to the growing list of questions as to the platform’s compliance with the Digital Services Act.

This work was supported by the Bright Initiative, powered by Bright Data, which offers public-interest organizations pro bono access to large-scale web data collection tools.