Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Deletes Over 10,000 Bots That Discouraged US Midterm Voting (cnn.com)
Twitter has deleted over 10,000 disinformation bots discouraging Americans from voting in Tuesday's midterm elections.
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had brought the accounts to their attention. "For the election this year we have established open lines of communication and direct, easy escalation paths for state election officials, DHS, and campaign organizations from both major parties," the spokesperson said. The company said it believes the network of accounts was run from the United States.
The 10,000 accounts were deleted in late September and early October, Reuters reports: The number is modest, considering that Twitter has previously deleted millions of accounts it determined were responsible for spreading misinformation in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet the removals represent an early win for a fledgling effort... The DCCC launched the effort this year in response to the party's inability to respond to millions of accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms that spread negative and false information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other party candidates in 2016, three people familiar with the operation told Reuters... The DCCC developed its own system for identifying and reporting malicious automated accounts on social media, according to the three party sources.
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had brought the accounts to their attention. "For the election this year we have established open lines of communication and direct, easy escalation paths for state election officials, DHS, and campaign organizations from both major parties," the spokesperson said. The company said it believes the network of accounts was run from the United States.
The 10,000 accounts were deleted in late September and early October, Reuters reports: The number is modest, considering that Twitter has previously deleted millions of accounts it determined were responsible for spreading misinformation in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet the removals represent an early win for a fledgling effort... The DCCC launched the effort this year in response to the party's inability to respond to millions of accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms that spread negative and false information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other party candidates in 2016, three people familiar with the operation told Reuters... The DCCC developed its own system for identifying and reporting malicious automated accounts on social media, according to the three party sources.
Everybody owes me a platform, waaah waaaah waaaah!
Signed,
The Party of Personal Responsibility
The party of "science is fake but QAnon is real" sure is in a great position to mock safe spaces, huh.
The number of people on voter rolls doesn't change anything, and meatbag impersonation is ineffective and stupidly easy to catch, which is why it's so rare. There are TONS of ACTUAL problems with our electoral system, the chief of which is that we have a system that protects the two party system, but I haven't seen the GOP ever offer a solution to a problem that exists in the real world.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Some of my best friends friends are Zombie-Americans (but they prefer to be called the living impaired).
Seriously though, Voter fraud is a red herring to distract from Voter Suppression. Jury Duty, Voting on Tuesday, disenfranchising felons (and making it impossible for them to get their rights back), the constant voter roll purges (targeted at left leaning voters) and my personal favorite stationing armed police in riot gear outside polls in predominately black neighborhoods to "keep order". Heck, there's been a few instances of people being prosecuted and jailed for "voter fraud" because they helped an elderly relative who couldn't see vote, which is in itself suppression (don't vote or we'll throw you in prison).
This stuff works, especially in a country with such slim margins of victory. Trump one the Whitehouse by a few hundred thousand votes.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
going on this year. If you can't win, cheat. It works.
Good election = good candidates
Bad election = bad candidates (and may the lesser evil win)
Worst election = bad candidate lies and "wins" by destroying the good candidate
Character assassination should not be the best campaign strategy.
Perhaps our best hope for democracy right now would be the hope that November 6th is actually a 3-way election between:
(1) Democratic candidates who want government of the people, by the people, for the people
(2) "Traditional" GOP candidates who want government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% and
(3) Trump and his lackeys who merely want government of, by, and for the Donald
Oh! Wait! There are no category (2) candidates left on the ballots so they can't divide any elections. So much for that hope.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
What vote are they supposed to be suppressing by posting that on their own website? Interstate-hunting democrats?
In the little over an hour since this story about trolls being removed from Twitter was posted, 34 of the 38 comments posted here were from anonymous cowards, and most of those were trolling, with comments like, "only n i g g e r s use Twitter" and "go choke yourself" and "it's an attack against conservatives" and how "the bots stuff is bullshit".
Two of those are just dumbarse AC wastes of space, a time honored Slashdot tradition. The other two are quite possibly just points of view that you don't like.
I count five making the case for not voting and three others making the "both sides are trash" argument (which is also a case against voting).
You don't have to go to Twitter to see this effect in action. The problem is, it's not working as well this time around.
Making a case for not voting, and "both sides are trash", are points of view. You don't have to like them, but that doesn't make them nefarious "voter suppression". Doesn't make them bots either.
Even directly suggesting that voting is a waste of time is just a point of view. It may or may not persuade anyone. We used to value the freedom to try to persuade each other of things. There may have even been an amendment about it. (Yes, Twitter isn't government. I'm talking about the sentiment, the valuing of that freedom.)
Yeah and for some goddamn reason the Republicans haven't been able to JACK SHIT to curb illegal immigration despite having several opportunities over the years to do so.
Republican majority in House? Check.
Republican majority in Senate? Check.
Republican president? Check.
And not a single comprehensive immigration reform law has been passed.
"Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had brought the accounts to their attention. ".
There is no way to read this article that does not imply that the Democrats asked Twitter to suppress a select list of accounts, just in time to influence the midterm elections; and Twitter obeyed. Anyone who argues otherwise is simply being disingenuous.
International Socialism, which is both the political philosophy and the religion of the Democratic Party, explicitly endorses government/industry partnerships ("crony capitalism"), in which the government supports and protects corporations that support and protect the socialist party. This is why big companies, like Google, Facebook, etc, support International Socialism - because the Democrats will protect their monopoly positions, as long as they publicly and privately support whatever goals the Democrats set for them. International Socialism is not Communism; International Socialism, like National Socialism before it, actually accepts and encourages monopoly capitalism, so long as the capitalists ensure that their corporations subordinate to the will of the party.
if you believe in International Socialism, particularly with religious fervor, then the fact that the tech giants are actively engaged in swaying elections is a good thing... as is voting fraud, fake news, and anything else required to end this democratic tyranny of the proletariat and put the priestly elites back in charge.