X has told UK's MPs or Members of Parliament that it suspended 800 million accounts to combat state-backed campaigns on the website, according to The Guardian. Wifredo Fernandez, X's head of global government affairs, told the officials that the suspensions happened over a 12-month period in 2024 and that the accounts were suspended for violating X's rules on platform manipulation and spam. Russia was allegedly behind most of the accounts that were flooding the website with spam, followed by state actors from China and Iran.The Russian accounts were trying to stoke division" and disseminate a particular type of narrative" to manipulate the 2024 US Presidential Elections, he told MPs on the foreign affairs committee during a video call. Fernandez also claimed that the attempts to manipulate discussions and spam on the service aren't done yet. There are efforts every single day to create inauthentic networks of accounts," he said. Apparently, X suspended an additional several hundred million accounts" last year as well, presumably also due to foreign state-backed manipulation campaigns.To note, Statista estimates the number of users on X to be 429 million in early 2024. The Guardian also says the platform has approximately 300 million monthly users worldwide.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/x-says-it-suspended-800-million-accounts-in-2024-over-spam-and-manipulation-123000201.html?src=rss

X is updating its revenue-sharing incentives to give more weight to engagement from a user's home region, Nikita Bier, the company's Head of Product has announced. Bier said the change in policy was to encourage content that resonates with people in [the user's] country, in neighboring countries and people who speak [their] language."Bier continued that while X appreciates everyone's opinion on US politics, the company is hoping the new policy can disincentivize gaming the attention of US or Japanese accounts." The US and Japan have the largest number of users on X. Bier didn't mention it outright, but dozens of popular accounts tweeting pro-Trump sentiments and commentaries focusing on US politics in general were revealed to be based outside the US late last year, when X rolled out a transparency feature that exposed users' locations. Those accounts, which pretended to be from the US and garnered millions of likes, views and reposts, turned out to be based in countries like India, Kenya and Nigeria.X will be a much richer community when there's relevant posts for people in all parts of the world," Bier said. When one user responded to his post that some countries barely have any users, making it hard to earn money from the website, Bier just suggested that they should write about their day-to-day experiences. Of course, you're welcome to continue chiming in on America politics. We just won't send money overseas for that content," he said. X's new policy will start taking effect on Thursday, March 26.