The BBC has highlighted many examples of obvious and growing fraud on Twitter.

Some of the most widely shared examples can be found on Twitter, posted by subscribers with a blue tick, who pay for their content to be promoted to other users.

Russia allegedly now treats Twitter like an abused pet, a starving dog meant to bark all the time.

The “business model” of selling cheap airtime to Russian con artists is reminiscent of how African dictatorships were manipulated in the 1980s.