Bhubaneswar: Researchers sharing footage of Russian helicopters heading toward Crimea or tank divisions moving to the border taken from social media — commonly known as open-source intelligence or OSINT — found their accounts blocked on Twitter.
“I am back again after having been locked out twice in 24 hours. First time for a post debunking the “foiled sabotage/gas attack” and the second time for a post debunking the “Ukrainian attack into Russia,” said Oliver Alexander, analysts with open-source intelligence (OSINT).
“@Twitter needs to do something against these locks now,” he added.
OSINT researcher Kyle Glen was also locked out of his account for 12 hours on the night of February 22.
The French-language OSINT account Neurone Intelligence, Spanish-language account Mundo en Conflicto, and Brazilian OSINT account Notícias e Guerras were also affected, The Verge reported.
While researchers felt that the account suspension could have been part of a mass reporting campaign intended to disable OSINT accounts during a Russian invasion, a Twitter spokesperson claimed that it was an error and not part of a coordinated campaign.
“We’re expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts. The claims that the errors were a coordinated bot campaign or the result of mass reporting is inaccurate,” the company spokesperson added.
