Twitter suspends over 70 mn fake accounts
San Francisco, July 7 : Twitter Inc. has suspended more than 70 million fake accounts in May and June in a massive drive to clear out bots and trolls on the platform, the media reported.
The crackdown on suspicious accounts, which came amid mounting political pressure after Congress criticised Twitter for lax regulation on foreign-controlled fake accounts to spread false information that may impact US domestic politics, Xinhua reported on Friday.
Twitter sources told The Washington Post that the rate of account suspensions has more than doubled since October as over 1 million accounts were suspended a day in recent months.
The wave of account suspensions by the world's largest social network is one of several recent campaigns by Twitter to police its platform and stop spam and abuse of fake accounts.
Last month, Twitter announced "new measures to fight abuse and trolls, new policies on hateful conduct and violent extremism, and (we) are bringing in new technology and staff to fight spam and abuse."
Focusing on improving the health of conversations on Twitter means "ensuring people have access to credible, relevant, and high-quality information on Twitter," Del Harvey, Vice President of Trust and Safety of Twitter, said in an official blog post in June.
Twitter's aggressive measures against unwanted accounts may impact its user base as a fall in the number of monthly users could be expected in the second quarter ending last week, according to the Post report.
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Traffic fraud: Fake 'no-entry' sticker racket busted in Delhi, mastermind among 3 held
New Delhi (PTI): Police here have busted a crime syndicate involved in traffic fraud and extortion, arresting three people including the alleged mastermind who sold fake stickers to help commercial vehicles bypass no-entry restrictions, an official said on Saturday.
The police said they dismantled a third organised syndicate linked to traffic-related frauds, with the arrest of Rinku Rana alias Bhushan, his associate Sonu Sharma and Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, who was also connected to another extortion syndicate.
According to the police, Rinku Rana was running a well-organised network that facilitated the movement of commercial goods vehicles during restricted hours by selling fake 'marka' or stickers for Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per vehicle every month. The stickers were falsely projected as authorisation to evade traffic challans.
During raids, the police recovered Rs 31 lakh in cash, property documents worth several crores of rupees, over 500 fake stickers and six mobile phones allegedly used to operate the syndicate.
The crackdown followed a complaint filed by a traffic police officer in April this year after a commercial vehicle tried to evade checking by producing a fake sticker claiming exemption from enforcement action.
Investigation revealed that social media groups were being used to coordinate the illegal movement of vehicles and alert drivers about traffic police checkpoints, police said.
"A parallel system was being run to cheat drivers and vehicle owners while undermining traffic enforcement. On the basis of evidence, provisions related to organised crime under the BNS were invoked," a senior police officer said.
Sonu Sharma, the police said, managed social media groups through which stickers were sold and real-time alerts were circulated regarding traffic police movement. He also acted as a link between Rana and drivers operating in the field.
In a related development, Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, an associate of Rajkumar alias Raju Meena, who was earlier arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), was also apprehended.
Mukesh allegedly helped extort money from transporters and was involved in blackmailing traffic police personnel by recording enforcement actions, the police said.
Investigators alleged the syndicate led by Rajkumar deployed drivers to deliberately violate traffic rules and secretly record police officials during challans, later using manipulated videos to extort money under threat of false allegations.
The police said that in total, eight accused belonging to three different organised crime syndicates linked to traffic frauds and extortion have been arrested so far.
Further investigation is underway to trace the remaining members, conduct financial probes, and analyse digital evidence recovered during the raids, officials added.
