The company wants to promote "open research and investigation" to help understand these meddling campaigns, according to Head of Site Integrity Yoel Roth. While Twitter will try to stop and prevent these efforts, it doesn't believe it (or society at large)\ will truly understand these threats unless there's outside analysis. "We strongly believe that this level of transparency can enhance the health of the public conversation on the internet," Roth said.

Twitter has already provided access to a handful of specialist researchers to get the ball rolling.

It's not certain that posting this data will lead to revelations beyond what you've already seen. It's no secret that millions of people followed and interacted with bogus Russian accounts, for instance. However, independent researchers have both different goals than Twitter as well as their own resources. They may spend more time tracing the origins of given tweets or identifying consistent patterns of behavior. While the added transparency is likely coming too late to signifciantly affect the 2018 US midterm elections, it might help detect and thwart influence campaigns in future elections.