Twitter Suspends Fraudulent Pro-Trump Accounts

By Staff, Agencies

Twitter said Tuesday it had suspended a number of fake accounts purporting to be African-Americans who support US President Donald Trump.

"Our teams are working diligently to investigate this activity and will take action in line with the Twitter rules if tweets are found to be in violation," said a spokesman for the San Francisco-based company.

Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University who specializes in disinformation on social media, published some examples of the fake accounts on Twitter, accusing them of using "digital black face."

"Yes, IM BLACK AND IM VOTING FOR TRUMP!" said one of the examples he shared, under the name of Ted Katya on September 17. "Libs won’t like that but I don’t care !!!"

The tweet was shared 6,000 times and "liked" more than 16,000 times. The fraudulent accounts were reportedly able to accumulate thousands of followers in just the past few days.

Most of the accounts "used images of real Americans in their profiles," Linville said, and some of them had tens of thousands of followers.

Twitter suspended the profiles because they were deceiving users about their intentions and identity, violating the platform's terms of service regarding the manipulation of public debate.

The company forbids using their service "to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people's experience on Twitter," according to guidelines published last month.

Under heavy criticism, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have mobilized in the run-up to the November 3 election to show they have learned the lessons of the scandals in 2016, when they were used to spread false or misleading information ahead of the US elections.

The platforms have made progress in dismantling large-scale disinformation campaigns but now face a number of smaller-scale attempts to disseminate falsehoods through accounts like those suspended on Tuesday.

The people behind such campaigns often use themes linked to current events and which inflame public opinion, such as the coronavirus or the Black Lives Matter movement, to draw in as many followers as possible.