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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.
Twitter deletes whatever Democrats don't like.
All of Twitter users are bots that spout the same useless information they seem to have been preprogrammed to spout.
I Haven't used that piece of shit in about 10 years. I bet only n i g g e r s of the highest order use that caca.
Since Twitter now needs phone numbers as an anti bot measure, trace the companies giving out phone numbers to bots.
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.
You mean how Twitter admitted under oath to suppressing #DNCLeak during the election campaign?
That was simply suppression of news that made Democrats look horrible, not misinformation.
twatter is cesspool full of lies.
Twitter is pointless. Stop wasting your time. Make up your own mind. Don't be programmed by others with an agenda and an axe to grind.
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
But....I am a busy person. I have better things to do than make a microscopic drop-in-the-bucket contribution to a decision about which corrupt aristocrat betrays me.
Maybe, once I am retired, and have nothing better to do than follow politics, and have a direct incentive to protect my medical benefits, social security payments, and property value, maybe then I will vote.
Until then, the difference I make by voting (rounds down to zero) just isn't worth the effort it takes.
Yes, I know "if everyone thought that way..." I KNOW. That doesn't change my incentives *at all*. And not everyone thinks that way, so the point is moot.
The North Dakota Democratic Party posted a misleading ad on its website and on Facebook that suggests state residents should reconsider voting in this yearâ(TM)s election if they have hunting licenses in other states. âoeBy voting in North Dakota, you could forfeit your hunting licenses.â - posted on the Democratic partyâ(TM)s website this week.
https://www.apnews.com/f547f02...
The North Dakota Democraticâ"Nonpartisan League Party is running a Facebook ad in North Dakota that claims your hunting license is at risk. "Attention hunters: Voting in North Dakota could cost you your out-of-state hunting licenses," says the Facebook ad, which began running on Nov. 1.
https://www.politifact.com/tru...
The Facebook ad, paid by the North Dakota Democratic-NPL, warns North Dakota hunters that they may have to forfeit their out-of-state licenses if they vote in this election. âoeIf you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, you may not want to vote in North Dakota,â the ad says, linking to a similar warning on the North Dakota Democratic-NPL website. âoeBy voting in North Dakota, you could forfeit your hunting licenses. You MUST be a resident of North Dakota to vote here. And if you are a resident of North Dakota, you may lose hunting licenses you have in other states,â the website said.
https://www.foxnews.com/politi...
With a byline like If you have reservations, vote Democratic, vote third party, or stay home in the 2018 midterm elections , I would hope the USA Today twitter account was also deleted (not holding my breath).
It's about knowing who you are.
The powers that be cannot abide anonymity.
How many ESL AC posts about how voting is pointless are in this thread. I count 3 as of this post.
This bots stuff is bullshit in all sides. If you are civic minded and have thought about the good of the community state and country then you donâ(TM)t need to be told to vote nor will bots detract you. If you donâ(TM)t follow public affairs in any way then itâ(TM)s probably best that you donâ(TM)t vote. If you want to vote, learn about the candidates and show up at the polling place. The bots are a pointless distraction.
Yet another attack aganst coservatives online. FREE SPEACH NOW!
"DEMOCRATS" didn't "suppress" TWITTER, you FUCKING NAZI MORON. TWITTER did. You're so stupid and loosely accusatory you could be the next Republican nominee.
Trump has used Twitter to launch hundreds of hurtful attacks.
Don't like it?
Boycott Twitter, and Fox News.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
"The biggest voter suppression is coming from the Democrats: by illegally bussing in voters to vote for them" - That's not voter suppression, moron.
"by refusing simple voting integrity checks" - Is not voter suppression, and also a lie. Any vote not authorized is not counted, moron. Fraud is minimal, like 300-500 per round. Stop lying bitch.
"by refusing to allow the removal of illegal voters from the voting roles" - That's not voter suppression, moron. And it's not factually based either.
"These are voter suppression tactics." WRONG, moron. SUPPRESSION is PREVENTING PEOPLE FROM VOTING, like Republicans in red states have done so much as to warrant the VOTING RIGHTS ACT.
You're too stupid to have a political conversation if you don't understand the difference between voter suppression as the Republicans are widely practicing now and canvassing to get extra voters on the rolls.
You're a dishonest faggot of no value or consequence to America. Thank God we're going to sweep you lying treasonous faggots out to sea, and we're going to lock up your wanna-be dictator the orange nazi moron.
Deal with it dishonest snowflakes, you're about to get rolled.
going on this year. If you can't win, cheat. It works.
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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".
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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/
...Can I call you both idiots?
Let's ban everything that I don't agree with!
I I'm not a bot, I think...
My settings render them mostly invisible, so I can't count them, and I sort of resent the time wasted by references to and citations of the invisible trolls, whether or not they are zombies. This whole AC thing has become an abuse of anonymity. There should be a simple option: "By default my comments are AC (or not)" and you should retain the option to override. Only a slight extension from the current situation, which pushes the "not" on people who might feel otherwise in this age of privacy intrusions.
Me? I think the only justification for anonymity is prior anonymity. For example, you wouldn't need to worry about being called out as a whistle-blower if the person and crimes you were blowing the whistle on were already known in public.
Most of the trolls are merely abusing our human tendency to be polite to strangers. There are evolutionary reasons why we are that way, but it seems our evolutionary weaknesses are on the edge of destroying our civilization. Thus endeth the Fermi Paradox.
I think the general solution [Gads, what fool thinks of discussing "solution" on today's Slashdot?] remains a stronger reputation system so that we don't have to waste so much time figuring out who is worth listening to. In other words, the time should be spent for the listening to, not for the figuring out.
I've already spent too much time on this comment. The story is about Twitter and Twitter is fundamentally FUBAR, but I bid you ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
OK, I get it if some people can be mislead by a bot saying "Senator Bedfellow eats babies" but how does one get fooled into not voting by a bot saying "only idiots vote, just don't do it..." ?
Kill the Satanic monster who feeds on Russian babies!
Twitter should create a website, where they list each account, and each message from each account. So that people can check out what propaganda messages have been sent out.
Twitter, Facebook, and social networking in general are the end of human civilization. We would do so much better completely banning social networks. Plus, that would also mean we would never hear from President Trump again.
Why don't you actually look at Trump for once and see the mountain of frauds he's built on, and realize the entire election is basically whether or not his fraud is held accountable, because this GOP is covering up for him?
YOU ARE THE FRAUD MORON, PAY ATTENTION.
There have been several Gubernatorial and National elections in the last 20 years decided by less than 300 votes. Seems that you like vote fraud that changes the results of the election.
This is a link to Dick Meyer Twitter account
https://twitter.com/DickMeyer_DC
His account is active and he wrote an article for USA Today on Oct. 23, 2018, titled "Dear concerned Semi-Trumpers, please resist a little and vote for Democrats in midterms."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/10/23/concerned-trump-voters-choose-democrats-third-party-stay-home-column/1669812002/
In the subheadline he writes, "vote Democratic, vote third party, or stay home in the 2018 midterm elections."
He concludes his article with " I’d say it’s better to stay home on Election Day than veto your reservations about Donald Trump and his presidency."
Please tell me how the DCCC is an unbiased source for this?
the results are already rigged in at least a dozen 'must win' (for either party) states... and not for the good guys.
It is a valid philosophical standpoint to argue against the value of democracy as a system of government.
The above AC's post is EXACTLY the kind of crap meme that gets spread around to discourage voting.
spread negative and false information
Please enable that filter globally.
90% of politicians messages will be instantly silenced. Negative and false information, about ones opponent, about opposing ideas, and about the current state of the world (to justify your new pet law) is the modus operandi of politics.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Keeping nibbers away from voting machines is like keeping women away from chocolate boxes.
were telling Republicans to vote for Libertarian candidates? (clearly a ploy to split the non-Democrat vote)
or
the ones that told hunters that if they voted in these midterms, they would lose their hunting licenses? (clearly a ploy to suppress the votes of gun owners)
yeah, thought not.
Posting the same reply I gave you last time you linked the same article, which you didn't answer.
It didn't merit an answer. "Automated System" is just an obvious attempt to dodge responsibility for the censorship (i.e. suppression of the hashtag), like when Youtube claims "the algorithm did it." It'll mean the same thing (i.e. nothing) when they switch to saying "the AI did it."
Their other excuse of "potential Russian links" is the same sad cover story the media desperately used in a (failed) attempt to stop people from paying attention to the content of the leak.
Z^-1
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
"Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had brought the accounts to their attention."
Would they have jumped as quickly if the RNC had brought 10,000 accounts to their attention? Or would we be reading about how the RNC tried to get Twitter to censor accounts of well-meaning woke robots?
"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.
it's too obvious when you swing an election that way. The exit polls don't match and, well, we've got decades of statistics on exit polls and we know how they should match (e.g. even if they don't match exactly we know roughly by how much they should be off, meaning if you' cheat that way to swing an election you're probably getting caught).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Dems will take your money, your guns and your speech. Then the Reps come take away social services, expand surveillance and give tax breaks to their friends. When you're barefoot and broke the reps will make it illegal. So vote early and often, just for 3rd parties and FOR actual candidates, not stupid "sports" teams.
He spouted unapproved opinions that had to be silenced.
Z^-2
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Z^-3
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.