Twitter suspends thousands of suspected bot accounts, conservative users angry
22 Feb 2018
Conservative Twitter users vented their anger at the social media company, alleging left-wing bias and censorship after thousands of followers were wiped out in an overnight bot purge.
Multiple accounts were suspended following the indictment by special counsel Robert S Mueller of Russian nationals for meddling in the US election, including the use of fake Twitter accounts to conduct "information warfare" against the US.
The hashtag #TwitterLockOut was trending in the US yesterday as thousands of accounts, including those belonging to Michael Flynn Jr, son of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Infowars editor Paul Joseph Watson complained that hundreds, and thousands, of their followers had been shut down.
"The twitter purge is real," Fox News commentator Dan Bongino wrote. "I woke up and saw I lost 100 or so followers," columnist Adriana Cohen tweeted.
Twitter would not reveal how many accounts had been purged.
"As part of our ongoing work in safety, we identify suspicious account behaviours that indicate automated activity or violations of our policies around having multiple accounts, or abuse," the company said in a statement.
Denying any crackdown on conservative voices, Twitter said, "Twitter's tools are apolitical, and we enforce our rules without political bias," it said.
Twitter released a statement saying that it was continuing to identify ''suspicious account behaviors'' that represented automated activity or other violations of its terms of service.
Twitter added that its work to remove malicious and fake accounts from its service included asking users to confirm a phone number so they can ''confirm a human is behind it.''
''That's why some people may be experiencing suspensions or locks,'' the company said in a statement from spokeswoman Emily Horne. ''Note that when an account is locked and being challenged to provide a phone number, it is removed from follower counts until it provides a phone number. This is part of our ongoing, comprehensive efforts to make Twitter safer and healthier for everyone.''
