Twitter Deleted Thousands of Accounts That Were Discouraging People From Voting

By Salvador Hernandez, BuzzFeed News

04 November 18

“We stopped this quickly and at its source,” a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

witter on Friday said it has deleted thousands of automated accounts that were posing as belonging to Democrats while trying to spread false information and discourage people from voting in the upcoming midterm elections.

“We stopped this quickly and at its source,” a spokesperson for the company told BuzzFeed News.

Twitter would not confirm how many accounts were deleted. But Reuters reported the company deleted more than 10,000 accounts after they were flagged by Democrats.

Twitter said it has been working closely with both major political parties, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, to monitor any efforts at interfering in Tuesday’s elections, where control of both houses of Congress could be affected.

The deleted accounts appeared to be domestic in origin, and coordinated mischief rather than international interference, Twitter added.

“Our singular goal is to enforce our policies vigorously and protect conversational health on our service,” the company spokesperson said in a statement. “We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion — a violation of our policies.”

According to Reuters, the accounts were flagged by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Officials there did not immediately respond to requests for comment.