Analysis of removed data from users attributed to Iran by Twitter during the 2020 US Presidential Elections timeframe

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Ali Rastegar 1
Hadi Khaniki 2
Hamidreza Rahmanizadeh Dehkordi 3
1 phd student of Allameh tatabaei
2 Department of Communication, Professor
3 Department of Political Science
10.22034/jcsc.2022.550364.2546
Abstract
Starting October 2018, Twitter removed thousands of users attributed to Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Catalonia, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Spain. In its last effort, on February 2021 Twitter released data from 238 deleted users attributed to Iran, while the data was collected on December 2020. The reason behind this deletion was claimed as Iran's attempts at affecting the 2020 US Presidential Elections.

This article will review the mechanical and human methods used for creation and distribution of fake news and also the mechanical methods for recognizing such content. Then the data from 238 removed users attributed to Iran up to December 2020 was first processed using scripts written with Python and finally analyzed for Social Network Analysis using the Kumu visualization tool. Nodes and edges show that there is in fact strong relations within removed users. Analysis of user langauges and profile bios showed that kost of the removed users claimed to not be from Iran and some had political tweets regarding the US Presidential Elections.

Keywords

Subjects

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Cultural Studies & Communication
Volume 20, Issue 74
Spring 2024
Pages 11-44