Pressure is growing on tech giant Twitter after further revelations about the extent of Russia-linked Tweets at the time of the Brexit vote last year.
Researchers have identified a vast swathe of messages sent by accounts in the country in a co-ordinated manner, The Times reports.
More than 150,000 accounts on the social network posted around 45,000 messages about Brexit during a 48 hour period, according to scientists at Swansea and Berkeley universities in a new paper seen by the newspaper.
Read more: Was the PM right to call out Russian attempts to influence UK politics?
And researchers at the University of Edinburgh identified more than 400 accounts operated by an agency linked to the Russian government that attempted to influence UK politics, the Guardian reports. They were among more than 2,000 accounts suspended by Twitter in the US, where the issue of Russian influence on the US election via social media is being investigated by lawmakers.
A similar number were identified by academics at the Oxford Internet Institute, Sky News reports.
It comes just a day after the Prime Minister accused the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of "sowing discord in the West" in a stinging attack.
And the research adds to growing evidence of the platform being used by Russia during political events.
Chair of the commons select committee for digital, culture, media and sport Damian Collins renewed his calls for Twitter to release the extent of Russian influence on the platform.
Read more: Trump u-turns on Russia meddling: "I believe our intelligence agencies"
The Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe told the Guardian: “What is at stake is whether Russia has constructed an architecture which means they have thousands of accounts with which they can bombard [us] with fake news and hyper-partisan content. We need to understand how widespread it is and what the impact is on the democratic process."
He has previously written to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey to release information.
I have written to Twitter requesting information about the 2,752 accounts linked to the St Peterburg based Internet Research Agency pic.twitter.com/qONfSOEnG4
— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) November 3, 2017
A similar demand was also issued to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Pressure is growing on tech giant Twitter after further revelations about the extent of Russia-linked Tweets at the time of the Brexit vote last year.
Researchers have identified a vast swathe of messages sent by accounts in the country in a co-ordinated manner, The Times reports.
More than 150,000 accounts on the social network posted around 45,000 messages about Brexit during a 48 hour period, according to scientists at Swansea and Berkeley universities in a new paper seen by the newspaper.
Read more: Was the PM right to call out Russian attempts to influence UK politics?
And researchers at the University of Edinburgh identified more than 400 accounts operated by an agency linked to the Russian government that attempted to influence UK politics, the Guardian reports. They were among more than 2,000 accounts suspended by Twitter in the US, where the issue of Russian influence on the US election via social media is being investigated by lawmakers.
A similar number were identified by academics at the Oxford Internet Institute, Sky News reports.
It comes just a day after the Prime Minister accused the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of "sowing discord in the West" in a stinging attack.
And the research adds to growing evidence of the platform being used by Russia during political events.
Chair of the commons select committee for digital, culture, media and sport Damian Collins renewed his calls for Twitter to release the extent of Russian influence on the platform.
Read more: Trump u-turns on Russia meddling: "I believe our intelligence agencies"
The Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe told the Guardian: “What is at stake is whether Russia has constructed an architecture which means they have thousands of accounts with which they can bombard [us] with fake news and hyper-partisan content. We need to understand how widespread it is and what the impact is on the democratic process."
He has previously written to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey to release information.
I have written to Twitter requesting information about the 2,752 accounts linked to the St Peterburg based Internet Research Agency pic.twitter.com/qONfSOEnG4
— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) November 3, 2017
A similar demand was also issued to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.