Twitter deletes thousands of accounts it says were discouraging US voting

Twitter has its own technology for spotting spam and bot accounts - AP

Twitter has deleted more than 10,000 bot accounts which it says were trying to persuade people not to vote in the upcoming US midterm elections.

Twitter did not provide any details on what types of messages the bots were sending, but according to Reuters, the accounts had posed as Democrats and urged key demographics not to vote, arguing, for example, that Democratic men should not vote as this would drown out the voices of women.

A spokesman for the company said it had taken “action on relevant accounts and activity on Twitter”. It had removed the posts between September and October.

Late on Friday, Twitter confirmed that it had first been alerted to the posts by the Democrat Party, which has set up its own system for spotting malicious accounts using technology developed by the University of Indiana.

Although Twitter has its own technology for spotting spam and bot accounts, and then deleting them, the Democrats are hoping that, by using their own system, they can respond quicker should misinformation campaigns start spreading in the run up to next Tuesday’s elections.

The Democratic National Committee did not respond to requests for comment.

The latest account removals come as part of a wider effort by Twitter to crack down on fake accounts on its platform.

In its most recent quarter, Twitter’s monthly user count plunged by 9 million to 335 million, as it continued to wipe out spam and bot accounts.

While falling user numbers usually hit investor confidence, though, shares in Twitter rallied after the latest results, in what was seen as a validation of its strategy to “prioritise the long-term health of Twitter” over user numbers. 

Since the start of 2018, Twitter’s shares have surged almost 40pc, even as other tech giants have come under pressure. October marked the Nasdaq’s worst month since the 2008 recession.