
Twitter took down thousands of accounts that discouraged  voting in midterms - MilnerRoute
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/tech/twitter-accounts-discourage-voting/index.html
======
BugsJustFindMe
We hear about accounts being removed, but we never hear about victimized
interlocutors being notified. It seems like telling people that they've been
misled by malicious actors would be a super important part of this policing
process.

Dear Twitter folks, it's not enough to just vanish a messenger after the
message has already been delivered.

~~~
nsedlet
It's also frustrating that Twitter didn't proactively do this - the DCCC had
to figure it out and tell them. Twitter itself is obviously best positioned to
detect patterns of suspicious activity, intervene before too much damage is
done, and investigate and publish their findings. But they don't seem to take
this problem very seriously.

Twitter is being brazenly used as a propaganda tool by terrible actors with
terrible agendas. It's infested with strange accounts of dubious authenticity
- which I think is fairly obvious looking through the replies to prominent
political accounts.

~~~
prolikewh0a
>Twitter is being brazenly used as a propaganda tool by terrible actors with
terrible agendas. It's infested with strange accounts of dubious authenticity
- which I think is fairly obvious looking through the replies to prominent
political accounts.

Look through Rebel HQ's Youtube interviews and you may be surprised to see
that these "strange accounts" are probably just heavily brainwashed and weird
Americans.

~~~
ddingus
Brainwashed and weird how?

~~~
prolikewh0a
For example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnhHzzbqPI4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnhHzzbqPI4)

------
malvosenior
I'd love to see an example of what these accounts were saying. "Discouraging
voting in the midterms" doesn't sound like something an account should get
deleted for.

If they're referencing the satirical NPC accounts, then I have even more of a
problem with it. If Twitter is going to engage in this type of censorship they
should provide some transparency. It's extra concerning that it was the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committe pushing Twitter to do that. All the
more reason to avoid the impression of impropriety.

~~~
MilnerRoute
Reuters has some examples. Posing as Democrats, some of the tweets were
telling men that they shouldn't vote, because it would be wrongly drowning out
the voices of women who needed to be heard more loudly in this election.

[https://www.marketscreener.com/TWITTER-
INC-38965267/news/Exc...](https://www.marketscreener.com/TWITTER-
INC-38965267/news/Exclusive-Twitter-deletes-over-10-000-accounts-that-sought-
to-discourage-U-S-voting-27536635/)

~~~
malvosenior
_”The Tweets included ones that discouraged Democratic men from voting, saying
that would drown out the voice of women, according to two of the sources
familiar with the flagging operation.”_

So yes, they’re pretty much banning satire and jokes not aligned with the
Democrats.

------
Svexav
What about real people who don't support voting? Would I get banned for
expressing my opinion?

~~~
prolikewh0a
Yes. Dissent is becoming an offense that can get you removed from the online
public square.

~~~
chasing
I mean, if you set up thousands automated accounts on Twitter to express that
dissent, yeah. Otherwise, seems like you’re good to go.

------
prolikewh0a
How do we trust that these were "automated" when we have no example accounts
or actual evidence?

------
octosphere
Can anyone tell me: are all these accounts phone activated? I remember trying
to setup multiple accounts on Twitter before (as a small experiment - I have
too much free time) and was prompted for my phone number, where Twitter would
then send a code to my phone for verification. I only had one burner sim at
the time to use for one dedicated account. So I imagine whoever is behind
these info ops has a lot of sim cards to use exclusively for Twitter? It
boggles my mind how these people manage to setup so many accounts. They have
to be buying sim cards in bulk.

------
colllectorof
Original article, from what I understand:
[https://www.marketscreener.com/TWITTER-
INC-38965267/news/Exc...](https://www.marketscreener.com/TWITTER-
INC-38965267/news/Exclusive-Twitter-deletes-over-10-000-accounts-that-sought-
to-discourage-U-S-voting-27536635/)

------
burtonator
This is a GREAT reason why Twitter's policy that licensees need to DELETE
posts that they delete is a horrible idea.

It prevents people from performing analysis on deleted tweets. This type of
data is VERY VERY valuable for this purpose but their ToS requires you to
delete a post from your index if the user deletes the post.

~~~
prolikewh0a
They don't want people to know they're deleting accounts of real people who
are simply expressing dissent.

~~~
ddingus
That opinion is plausible.

Source: Personal knowledge of people expressing dissent who have had accounts
removed on a variety of platforms, not just Twitter.

------
jayess
So we have Twitter taking down accounts at the behest of a political party?

~~~
httpsterio
Voting is and should be in every citizens interest, no matter which party you
support. Telling people not to vote is almost the same as saying that don't
trust democracy.

~~~
prolikewh0a
That's not for you, a company, or political entity to decide though. You have
the right to also not vote, and express your political opinion as to why
you're not voting, and why others may not want to either.

~~~
chasing
By allowing their platform to be used for a propagandistic disinformation
campaign Twitter would be allowing someone else to do exactly that. Some
organization wanted to create the illusion of a broad Democratic movement to
not vote as a way to persuade other Democrats to not vote. Twitter affirmed
that they do not want their platform used in that way.

If you want to blab on Twitter about your awesome plan to not vote, I doubt
you’ll have any issues from Twitter itself. Some of your followers might think
you’re a little dopey, but that’s entirely their right.

