The Royal Army (RTA) has dismissed Twitter’s accusation that more than 900 Twitter accounts, engaged in spreading disinformation about prominent opposition figures, were linked to the army.
Twitter said in a blog post that it has taken down more than 900 accounts linked to the RTA, adding “These accounts were political engaged in amplifying pro-RTA and pro-Government content, as well as in behavior targeting prominent opposition figures.”
Stanford Internet Observatory released a paper on Thursday detailing the RTA’s efforts to influence public opinion and to paint critics in a negative light.
The paper said that the RTA’s accounts had very few followers and many never tweeted at all. The most popular account had only 66 followers, it added.
RTA spokesman and Deputy Chief-of-Staff, Lt-Gen Santipong Thampiya, said today that Twitter’s assessment lacks in-depth analysis, the user accounts were unidentified and none of them are official accounts of the RTA.
He claimed Twitter’s assessment was unfair to the RTA, noting that such unnamed accounts could be created by anybody.
Lt-Gen Santipong, however, admitted that the army had used Twitter as a tool to communicate with the public and its men, claiming all such information contained therein is genuine.
