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.”
In response to the sudden culling of accounts, starting at around 1am Eastern Time today, some aligned with “alt-right” figures such as white supremacist Richard Spencer started the #TwitterLockOut and #TwitterPurge hashtags, and some resurfaced Project Veritas’ accusations that Twitter employees were deliberately censoring “right-leaning” accounts. Spencer himself claimed to have lost over 1,000 followers over a few hours overnight; Janna “Deplorable” Wilkinson, who had her own account suspended in October, claimed to have lost 3,500 followers.
Twitter has been more actively policing accounts since last October when Twitter’s general counsel Sean Edgett was grilled alongside representatives from Facebook and Google by the Senate Judiciary Committee over the use of social media by alleged Russian information operations during the 2016 presidential election. Last month, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) sent a letter to Twitter and Facebook requesting an investigation of a possible Russian influence campaign using the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag.
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