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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.
Everybody owes me a platform, waaah waaaah waaaah!
Signed,
The Party of Personal Responsibility
Since Twitter now needs phone numbers as an anti bot measure, trace the companies giving out phone numbers to bots.
The party of "science is fake but QAnon is real" sure is in a great position to mock safe spaces, huh.
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).
Your claims are so false, it's actually more illustrative to link a Google search instead of any one Snopes page https://www.google.com/search?q=snopes+illegal+voting&oq=snopes+illegal+voting&aqs=chrome..69i57.6253j1j7&client=ms-unknown&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
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.
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.
Interesting how I don't read too many stories about Republicans trying to register illegal aliens and dead people to vote yet every 2 years it happens in Chicago, California, Detroit.
Funny how you don't read stories like this one then.
Meanwhile, your claims of dead people being registered to vote are as bogus as the claims about busloads of illegal voters.
How do we know? Because we found out they lived.
Legit question for you AC- are there any legit reasons to try to suppress voter fraud? And I mean the real fraud committed by people, not the mysterious claims of machines miscounting their votes.
Flawed vote counting is actually a good concern. Why exclude it?
But here's your problem. They aren't trying to suppress voter fraud. By their own documented admission, they are trying to gain partisan advantages by suppressing the actual voter participation.
A common theme in American history. And all the false hysteria that are the mantra of the Kobach's and O'Keefe's of the world only further serves to weigh against the GOP.
Posting the same reply I gave you last time you linked the same article, which you didn't answer. Presumably because you couldn't find a Breitbart article that had an answer and you're not capable of coming up with one by yourself.
No, they admitted under oath that their automated system deleted 48% of the tweets. Breitbart didn't omit those details, why did you?
Also, why continue to vote for the Republicans in charge of that committee who failed to do anything after Twitter admitted that? They don't advocate for you, so why do you still support them? They took the side of big business, as usual, yet I doubt you're gonna vote to remove any of them from office in 2 weeks, are yah?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
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.
Interesting how all the voter supression and election fraud comes from the Republicans.
Nope. According to The New York Times,
The North Dakota Democratic Party posted a misleading ad on its website and on Facebook that suggests state residents should reconsider voting in this year's election if they have hunting licenses in other states.
. . .
A look at the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party's claim:
CLAIM: "By voting in North Dakota, you could forfeit your hunting licenses." - posted on the Democratic party's website this week.
THE FACTS: The ad is false.
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.
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Nobody has to agree to host your racist bullshit, loser.
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.
they are trying to gain partisan advantages [..] false hysteria
You mean like this?
"The Texas Democratic Party asked non-citizens to register to vote, sending out applications to immigrants with the box citizenship already checked "Yes," according to new complaints filed Thursday asking prosecutors to see what laws may have been broken.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation alerted district attorneys and the federal Justice Department to the pre-checked applications, and also included a signed affidavit from a man who said some of his relatives, who aren't citizens, received the mailing."
"The applications were pre-addressed to elections officials, which is likely what left many voters to believe they were receiving an official communication from the state.
But the return address was from the State Democratic Executive Committee, and listed an address in Austin that matches the state Democratic Party's headquarters.
The letter is emblazoned with "Urgent! Your voter registration deadline is October 9." It continues: "Your voter registration application is inside. Complete, sign and return it today!"
On the application, boxes affirming the applicant is both 18 and a U.S. citizen are already checked with an "X" in the Yes field.
The mailing also urges those who are unsure if they're registered to "Mail it in.""
People like Raenex think people who chant "Jews will not replace us" and "blood and soil" and mail pipe bombs to political opponents, and harangue people who use pizza emojis because only pedophiles use pizza emojis apparently, are a protected class unto themselves, which is why conservatives are now regarded as a laughingstock and being run out of town on a rail everywhere they go.
Let's see a more balanced version of the story (ever since reporters at the Washington Times called me an idiot for supporting Obamacare, I have dismissed them as angry, hateful partisan hacks):
I mean, sure if you think all brown-skinned people don't have a right to vote, you will think that any drive to try and get them to register to vote is "encouraging illegal voting".
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..." ?
that is complete bullshit.
I am not going to waste any time refuting the rest of your Gish gallop. Your claim that illegal voters were bused in has no basis in fact, so you obviously have no concern about objective truth or fact.
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.
Everybody owes me a living and a safespace from opinion I don't agree with, waah waaaah waaaah!
Look you Anonymous Coward Trump voter, your dear leader has already told you the USA owes you your coal mining job, so stop whining.
Now go back to your FOX NEWS safe space and get off the internet where you might hear opposing views, you conservative snowflake.
What vote are they supposed to be suppressing by posting that on their own website? Interstate-hunting democrats?
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.
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
I hate to disagree with you here, but the Republicans controlling the senate can kill the filabuster any time they want. Had I been in charge of the senate the first thing I would have done was kill the closure requirement. The Democrats did it to get there way when they controlled the senate and actions should have consequences. When the Democrats decided to overturn Senate rules that had existed since the time of Jefferson because they couldn't get their way why should the Republicans continue to operate with one hand tied behind their backs?
The only answer is that they don't really want to engender change and fix problems. They want to keep the issues alive as voting issues just like the Democrats. To quote a Dead White Guy, "A plague on both your houses."
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.
I guess you're talking about the "nuclear option" that the Democrats used to appoint judges. The Republicans returned the favor with the Supreme Court nomination.
As for completely ending the filibuster, maybe their ulterior motive is to keep voting issues alive, or maybe they like keeping the majority party in check via tradition. Not being privy to their thoughts or private conversations, I don't know what their thinking is, but I tend to agree, I'd be inclined to end the filibuster too.
That said, even without a filibuster, there is a problem with getting a sane immigration policy because there's a certain percentage of Republicans (like Paul Ryan) that are soft on immigration. That puts a tarnish on Republicans, but compared to the Democrats it's night and day.
"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?
"The problem is that he points out citizens as "enemies" and when you do that to an audience of millions there will always be a bunch of nutjobs that takes him seriously."
Meh. His former opponent--a politically savvy, well-connected, well-funded, and "the most qualified candidate ever" but who still lost to a political neophyte--called millions of people "deplorable" and compared members of a civil rights group to terrorists, and once told Anderson Cooper during a CNN interview that she considered members of the opposing party her enemies and that she was proud of that.
But it was a follower of that nice but a little crazy white-haired man who wanted to give everyone free college who went and tried to assassinate as many members of Congress of the opposing party as he could.
Yep nut jobs will be nut jobs, no matter what politicians say.
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).
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Get your own platform, they said.
The democrats, progressives and authoritarians believe that this is a good idea, that it absolutely will never be used against them either. And of course, this absolutely doesn't disprove the point that there's a group of people out there who are acting in a conspiratorial manner to silence speech.
Not at all.
Om, nomnomnom...
Pie R round, not square
This space unintentionally left blank.
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.