Twitter has removed more than 10,000 accounts aiming to discourage people from voting in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

A Twitter representative confirmed the social media site deleted several automated accounts sharing misinformation, but couldn't confirm the 10,000 figure. The company removed the accounts in September and October, Reuters reports.

The accounts were reportedly made to look like they were from Democrats, but the party reported the tweets to Twitter. The accounts also appeared to be domestic. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

"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," a Twitter representative said. "We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion - a violation of our policies. We stopped this quickly and at its source."

Twitter has been working to step up its fight against fake accounts. In July, it was reported that the social media company was suspending 1 million accounts a day in its fight against disinformation. In a June blog post, Twitter said it's "now removing 214 percent more accounts for violating our spam policies on a year-on-year basis." Twitter's efforts to combat bots and trolls comes as it deals with revelations that Russian-linked social media troll accounts may have influenced the 2016 US presidential election. </s> Twitter has deleted thousands of automated accounts that tried to discourage users from voting in the upcoming midterm elections, the company confirmed Friday. The accounts originated in the U.S. and were determined to be more mischievous than an organized plot.

"We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion — a violation of our policies," a Twitter spokesperson said. "We stopped this quickly and at its source. "

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) flagged the malicious accounts to Twitter officials, Reuters reports. The tweets included several that said male Democrats should refrain from voting to avoid drowning out the voices of women, sources told the news agency.

"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 Twitter spokesperson said.

Earlier this year, Twitter reportedly suspended 70 million fake and suspicious accounts and identified 3,814 accounts that were believed to be propaganda from the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency.

The accounts were taken down in late September and early October, Reuters reports. </s> Twitter has reportedly purged more than 10,000 bot accounts for attempts at discouraging voting.

According to a new report in Reuters, Twitter removed the accounts, which were automatically posting "misleading" messages about voting, in September and October.

The accounts made it appear as if the misleading information was coming from Democrats, which it was not. The accounts were reported to Twitter by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which is one of many organizations that has partnered with Twitter on election integrity efforts.

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said some accounts had been removed, but declined to say how many:



"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. "Our singular goal is to enforce our policies vigorously and protect conversational health on our service. We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion — a violation of our policies. We stopped this quickly and at its source."

Even so, a removal of 10,000 accounts isn't huge by Twitter standards. The company, which has undertaken a concerted effort to crack down on bots and spam, has removed as many as 1 million accounts per day, according to reports. But it does show that Twitter is taking the spread of misinformation in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections more seriously than it has previously. </s> Twitter said Friday that it had deleted thousands of automated accounts that were posting messages discouraging people from voting in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Most of the accounts were posing as Democrats, Twitter said.

“We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion – a violation of our policies. We stopped this quickly and at its source,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNN Business.

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. It would not share any details about what the accounts looked like, or how they were working to discourage voting.

The accounts were taken down in late September and early October, the company said.

Reuters was first to report on the account removals. </s> Twitter on Friday said it has deleted thousands of automated accounts that were posing as belonging to Democrats while trying to spread false information and discourage people from voting in the upcoming midterm elections.

“We stopped this quickly and at its source,” a spokesperson for the company told BuzzFeed News.

Twitter would not confirm how many accounts were deleted. But Reuters reported the company deleted more than 10,000 accounts after they were flagged by Democrats.

Twitter said it has been working closely with both major political parties, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, to monitor any efforts at interfering in Tuesday’s elections, where control of both houses of Congress could be affected.

The deleted accounts appeared to be domestic in origin, and coordinated mischief rather than international interference, Twitter added.

“Our singular goal is to enforce our policies vigorously and protect conversational health on our service,” the company spokesperson said in a statement. “We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion — a violation of our policies.”

According to Reuters, the accounts were flagged by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Officials there did not immediately respond to requests for comment. </s> Twitter said Friday that it had deleted thousands of automated accounts that were posting messages discouraging people from voting in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Most of the accounts were posing as Democrats, Twitter said.

“We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion – a violation of our policies. We stopped this quickly and at its source,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNN Business.

Twitter said that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) 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. It would not share any details about what the accounts looked like, or how they were working to discourage voting.

The accounts were taken down in late September and early October, the company said.

Democratic National Committee’s chief technology officer Raffi Krikorian said in a statement, “We applaud Twitter for taking this step to help ensure that voters get correct and timely information about how to make their voices heard on Election Day.”

The DCCC did not provide comment.

Reuters was first to report on the account removals. </s> Twitter removed more than 10,000 automated accounts, or “bots,” for posting messages purportedly sent by Democrats discouraging people from voting in next week’s midterm races, Reuters reported Friday.

The suspicious tweets were initially spotted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a group that supports party candidates seeking terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and subsequently brought them to Twitter’s attention prior to their being removed in late September and early October, the report said.

“We took action on relevant accounts and activity on Twitter,” a Twitter spokesperson told Reuters.

The tweets were detected as the results of an effort initiated earlier this year by Democrats in the wake of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other candidates being targeted during the 2016 election by bots, hackers and internet trolls traced to the Russian government, three people familiar with the DCCC’s operation told Reuters.

Using publicly available tools known as “Hoaxley” and “Botometer,” the DCCC developed a system for detecting and reporting suspected automated social media activity, Democratic sources told Reuters.

Among the posts identified by the DCCC’s system were tweets that specifically discouraged Democratic men from voting in the Nov. 6 midterms, “by arguing that their ballots would drown out those cast by women,” the report said.

The DCCC’s flagging ultimately resulted in Twitter purging more than 10,000 accounts from the social networking service, Reuters reported, citing three unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Representatives for Twitter did not immediately return a message confirming the number of accounts affected.

In addition to hacking Democratic targets including the DCCC and leaking internal documents leaked during the 2016 race, Russian operatives weaponized Twitter and other social media platforms to sow discord and attack Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, according to U.S. officials. Moscow has denied the allegations.

Twitter previously said it detected a total of 50,258 automated accounts that were identified as Russian-linked and responsible for tweeting election-related content during the 2016 race.

Russians employed by the Internet Research Agency, a company operated by an oligarch and friend of President Vladimir Putin, also meddled in the race by spreading disinformation and stirring debate on social networking services, U.S. officials said previously. Twitter ultimately traced their activities during the 2016 election to 3,841 accounts responsible for engaging with roughly 1.4 million users.

“Activity that attempts to manipulate or disrupt Twitter’s service is not allowed. We remove this when we see it,” Twitter said earlier this week. </s> Twitter Inc 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. </s> All the IRA-related accounts have been suspended and the company is sharing information about them with congressional investigators who are reviewing potential manipulation in the 2016 election. During the time period Twitter investigated, the 3,814 identified IRA-linked accounts posted 175,993 Tweets, about 8.4 per cent of which were election-related.

The social media company said it’s emailing notifications to 677,775 people in the U.S. who followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked a tweet from these accounts during the election period, according to a blog post Friday. That’s almost 1 per cent of Twitter’s 69 million monthly active users in the U.S. The new IRA accounts are in addition to 2,752 accounts Twitter found and disclosed last year.

Twitter Inc. said it found another 1,062 accounts linked to the Russian government-backed Internet Research Agency accused of trying to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

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“After the 2016 election, we launched our Information Quality initiative to further develop strategies to detect and prevent bad actors from abusing our platform,” the company said in the post. “We have since made significant improvements, while recognizing that we have more to do as these patterns of activity develop and shift over time.”

Twitter also said its second assessment found another 13,512 Russian-linked automated accounts, for a total of 50,258, that tweeted election-related content during the 10 weeks before the 2016 election. Last year, when Twitter first disclosed the existence of these accounts, the company said the bots were responsible for about 1.4 million automated, election-related tweets.

Lawmakers have sharply criticized the social media companies for taking too long to recognize the seriousness of the Russian attempts to sow discord among U.S. voters. Twitter said that in preparation for the 2018 midterm elections it would verify major party candidates for all statewide and federal offices, with open “lines of communication” to federal and state officials. The company has also banned Russian state media accounts from buying ads and is creating a “transparency centre” to show how much political campaigns spend on advertising, the identity of the organization funding the campaign, and what demographics the ads targeted.

Twitter’s announcement Friday comes after Facebook Inc. said it would show people which Russian propaganda pages or accounts they had followed and liked on the social network.
Twitter deletes 10,000 bot accounts that were discouraging people from voting in the midterm elections in the United States.