X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts

Social media company tells MPs of continual fight against state-backed efforts, with Russia being most prolific Elon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800m accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform. The social media company told MPs it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to hijack the agenda on its network, with Russia the most prolific state actor, followed by Iran and China. As part of the battle against such content, X suspended 800m accounts in 2024 for breaching its rules on platform manipulation and spam, although it did not reveal which of those suspensions related to foreign interference. X has approximately 300 million monthly users worldwide. Wifredo Fernández, a government affairs executive at the platform’s parent company, X Corp, said: “There are efforts every single day to create inauthentic networks of accounts.” Speaking to MPs on the foreign affairs committee via video link on Monday, Fernández said attempts to manipulate the platform or flood it with spam had not subsided and “several hundred million accounts” had been taken down in the latter part of last year as well. Fernán