Some prominent conservatives and white supremacists are blaming Twitter's bot crackdown for wiping out thousands of their followers (TWTR)

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• Several prominent conservatives and white supremacists on Twitter noticed they had lost thousands of followers on Wednesday morning.

• Claiming they were targeted because of their political views, they surfaced the hashtag #TwitterLockout.

• Twitter confirmed with Business Insider it had indeed suspended accounts, but said Twitter's tools are "apolitical."

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Some prominent conservatives and white supremacists on Twitter lost thousands of followers Wednesday after Twitter purged its service of numerous automated "bot" accounts.

Claiming they were unfairly targeted for their political views — and that some legitimate Twitter users were locked out or suspended — conservative Twitter users started the hashtag #TwitterLockout, which was trending on Wednesday morning. Infamous white nationalist Richard Spencer joined the fray, tweeting that he lost close to 1,000 followers.

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/966191542548484096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I've lost close to 1,000 followers offer the past few hours.

Major purge underway. Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/966347836756496384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Twitter took away about 4,000 of my followers thinking they were bots. Well they are all coming back and even new people who never knew me before! Ha! Whatever you try to do to us MAGA people understand it only ends in our favor. I guess it’s only conservatives that bots follow]]>😂