Twitter removes 130 Iranian accounts trying to disrupt US polls

Twitter has purged 130 Iranian accounts that attempted to disrupt and manipulate the public conversation during the first 2020 US Presidential Debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic Party's presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Twitter said the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) provided them the information.

"Based on intel provided by the @FBI, last night we removed approximately 130 accounts that appeared to originate in Iran. They were attempting to disrupt the public conversation during the first 2020 US Presidential Debate," the company said in a tweet on Wednesday.

Twitter plans to publish details about the removed accounts and their tweets on its Transparency website.

"They had very low engagement and did not make an impact on the public conversation," the company informed.

"As standard, the accounts and their content will be published in full once our investigation is complete".

Last month, Facebook and Twitter purged social media accounts for a news organisation called PeaceData that was linked to Russia's state machinery after they received a tip from the FBI.

Twitter in July removed more than 7,000 accounts associated with the far-right conspiracy theory group QAnon, citing concerns about offline harm.

QAnon emerged in the US President Donald Trump era and its supporters believe that Trump is waging a hidden battle against a secretive elite known as the "Deep State".