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Wikileaks wants to build a database of verified Twitter users

Big brother may be watching you, but even more so if you are a verified Twitter user. At least th...
Newstalk
Newstalk

16.50 7 Jan 2017


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Wikileaks wants to build a dat...

Wikileaks wants to build a database of verified Twitter users

Newstalk
Newstalk

16.50 7 Jan 2017


Share this article


Big brother may be watching you, but even more so if you are a verified Twitter user.

At least that is part of a proposed plan by disclosure website WikiLeaks.

The website gained new prominence in March 2016, when it launched a searchable archive of over 30,000 e-mails and e-mail attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was US Secretary of State.

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It comes as a report by US spy chiefs concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to influence the US presidential election.

The agencies claim Russia hacked into the e-mails of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs Clinton's campaign team and then Russian officials fed the hacked material to WikiLeaks.

On Friday, WikiLeaks Task Force said in a tweet: "We are thinking of making an online database with all 'verified' twitter accounts & their family/job/financial/housing relationships."

This tweet was deleted hours later.

But it also moved to clarify: "The idea is to look at the network of *relationships* that influence -- not to publish addresses."

In response to questions from other Twitter users for clarity on the idea, WikiLeaks Task Force added: "It is to develop a metric to understand influence networks based on proximity graphs."

Twitter verifies certain accounts with a blue tick badge if it is determined to be an account of public interest.

Typically this includes accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas.

In a possible response, Twitter's Safety account tweeted: "Posting another person's private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter Rules".

It also included a link to its privacy policy.


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