Tech

Twitter deleted more than 10,000 accounts that sought to discourage voting

Key Points
  • Twitter deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts that discouraged people from voting in the U.S. election Tuesday.
  • This is the latest in an ongoing effort by Twitter to remove automated accounts.
  • The Democratic Party flagged misleading messages to Twitter.
Twitter reportedly deletes more than 10,000 automated accounts
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Twitter reportedly deletes more than 10,000 automated accounts

Twitter deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts posting messages that discouraged people from voting in Tuesday's U.S. election and wrongly appeared to be from Democrats, after the party flagged the misleading tweets to the social media company.

"We took action on relevant accounts and activity on Twitter," a Twitter spokesman said in an email. The removals took place in late September and early October.

The number of accounts removed 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 by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, a party group that supports Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives.

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.

Good news for Twitter is that nothing else does what it does, says Henry Blodget
VIDEO1:4901:49
Good news for Twitter is that nothing else does what it does, says Henry Blodget