Bots, your days of tweeting politically divisive nonsense might be numbered. The Washington Post reported Friday that in the last few months the company has aggressively suspended accounts in an effort to stem the spread of disinformation running rampant on its platform.
The Washington Post reports that Twitter suspended as many as 70 million accounts between May and June of this year, with no signs of slowing down in July. According to data obtained by the Post, the platform suspended 13 million accounts during a weeklong spike of bot banning activity in mid-May.
Sources tell the Post that the uptick in suspensions is tied to the company’s efforts to comply with scrutiny from the Congressional investigation into Russian disinformation on social platforms. The report adds that Twitter investigates bots and other fake accounts through an internal project known as “Operation Megaphone” through which it buys suspicious accounts and then investigates their connections.
Twitter declined to provide additional information about the Washington Post report but pointed us to a blog post from last week in which it disclosed other numbers related to its bot hunting efforts. In May of 2018, Twitter identified more than 9.9 million suspicious accounts — triple its efforts in late 2017.
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