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posted by janrinok on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the death-of-the-bot dept.

According to Ars Technica

A number of "alt-right," pro-Trump, and self-described conservative social media personalities awoke this morning to find that they had a lot fewer followers on Twitter than they had the night before. The apparent cause was the latest culling by Twitter of accounts that in some way violated the company's terms of service, a Twitter spokesperson told Ars, including "behaviors that indicate automated activity or violations of our policies around having multiple accounts, or abuse." The sweep has some on the right accusing Twitter of politically motivated censorship.

"Twitter's tools are apolitical, and we enforce our rules without political bias," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Ars. The accounts were targeted as part of "our ongoing work in safety," the spokesperson said. "We also take action on any accounts we find that violate our terms of service, including asking account owners to confirm a phone number so we can confirm a human is behind it. That's why some people may be experiencing suspensions or locks. This is part of our ongoing, comprehensive efforts to make Twitter safer and healthier for everyone."

And at Vanity Fair:

Renewed fears of censorship have once again led some users to talk about leaving to join Gab, the so-called free-speech social network that cropped up in 2016 as an alternative to Twitter. And Gab couldn't be more pleased. Utsav Sanduja, the company's chief operating officer, told me on Wednesday that the company had seen "a surge of donations, Gab memberships, [and] user sign-ups" since Tuesday night.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:48PM (5 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:48PM (#642000)

    One can clearly see how Twitter has been cracking down mercifully on every single questionable post by, and threatening repeatedly to expel, the leader of the right wing in the USA.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:55PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:55PM (#642057)

    Twitter would ditch Trump in a heartbeat if they could do it without shareholders flipping out. Trump is singlehandedly keeping twitter alive right now. Twitter was a dying platform... then Trump saved them.

    If you act like Trump but are not Trump, you get banned very quickly.

    Numerous republican candidates for office have been banned. Twitter is cutting them off to influence our elections. Given that the majority shareholder is Saudi, there's your foreign election interference right there.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:47PM (#642085)

      "He's more Tweet than man, now."

      Seems like it goes both ways, and what we say is true, from a certain point of view.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:48PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:48PM (#642086)

      I like this idea, as if all the conservatives are being played. Your last bit about Saudi's doesn't make sense, the Republican agenda is what they want!

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @07:36AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @07:36AM (#642254)

        as if all the conservatives are being played

        Allow me to introduce you to https://soylentnews.org/~Runaway1956/ [soylentnews.org]

        Conservatives, being played. Runaway had no clue how much he is being played by Ruskies! He even admitted it,once: The Ruskies played the Hypnotoad on him. Either that, or it was Italian whores. But who can tell, and who can remember, let alone Runaway his own self.

  • (Score: 2) by Virindi on Friday February 23 2018, @07:39PM

    by Virindi (3484) on Friday February 23 2018, @07:39PM (#642585)

    One can clearly see how Twitter has been cracking down mercifully on every single questionable post by, and threatening repeatedly to expel, the leader of the right wing in the USA.

    It is pretty obvious that the reason they haven't done anything, is because they think Trump's comments only serve to hurt him. Most of Trump's opponents seem to agree on that.

    Whether it is actually true, I am not sure.