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.
Since Twitter now needs phone numbers as an anti bot measure, trace the companies giving out phone numbers to bots.
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.
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/