'Russia twittered a lot around Brexitstemming'

london - In the days around the British Brexite Reference, Russian accounts have posted massive messages on Twitter. In 48 hours, they have put about 45,000 tweets online. Most of the people called the British to leave the European Union.

The universities of Swansea and California conclude that in a study, from which The Times quotes Wednesday. The researchers found in total more than 156,000 Russian accounts written about brexit. Most were bots, or specially programmed accounts that automatically pump tweets. Previously, those accounts mainly wrote about the conflict in Ukraine, but around the British referendum they suddenly got attention to the Brexit.

The Russian accounts were mainly active on June 23, the day of the referendum. The next day they were still busy, but after that the accounts immediately stopped. 'The main conclusion is that bots were deliberately used and influenced,' says researcher Tho Pam.