【Girlfriend’s Sister [Uncut]】

Twitter is Girlfriend’s Sister [Uncut]cracking down on Russian media advertising via its platform.

The company revealed Thursday it has banned news outlets Russia Today(RT) and Sputnikfrom advertising with any of their accounts, effective immediately. The decision comes after an internal investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Twitter discovered RTspent $274,100 in U.S. ads in 2016 and promoted 1,823 tweets. 

"This decision was based on the retrospective work we've been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government," Twitter wrote in a blog post.

"We did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter," the statement continued.

Twitter also will be allocating the revenue they received from these accounts to the company's investigation.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

RTand Sputnikare funded by the Russian government and generally considered to be a form of propaganda for the country's interests. Though the RTclaims to be an independent editorial operation, the U.S. Justice Department recently required the company to register as a foreign agent.

Next week, Twitter is headed to Washington. Twitter's general counsel along with representatives from Facebook and Google will testify on Nov. 1 to the House Senate Intelligence Committee during a hearing about the use of social media to sway the 2016 election.

RT has thrived on social media, particularly YouTube and Facebook. RTwill still be able to run its Twitter account and tweet organically as long as they abide by the terms and conditions. The change means they cannot put money behind any tweets in an effort to promote them to a certain audience.

RT didn't take the move lightly. Shortly after Twitter's announcement, RT published a story claiming that Twitter pushed for RT to spend a lot of money on ads around the 2016 election. RTclaims it turned Twitter down.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

No other accounts are affected by the decision, according to the blog post.

Following the 2016 election and a U.S. government investigation on Russian interference, Twitter has made several changes with its advertising platform ahead of any government regulation. This week, Twitter committed to labeling political ads and hosting a public database of all ads.

The U.S. government could require such disclosures and transparency in the future. Last week, Sen. Mark Warner co-sponsored a bill called the Honest Ads Act that would require internet companies to keep a public database.

Twitter reported its quarterly earnings earlier Thursday where it admitted a major error in counting its user numbers. In better news, the company is expected to be profitable next quarter.

(Editor: {typename type="name"/})