Genuine accounts swept away in Twitter crackdown on ‘bots’
chicago — Nina Tomasieski logs on to Twitter before the sun rises. Seated at her dining room table with a nearby TV constantly tuned to Fox News, the 70-year-old grandmother spends up to 14 hours a day tweeting the praises of President Trump and his political allies, particularly those on the ballot this fall, and deriding their opponents.
She’s part of a dedicated band of Trump supporters who tweet and retweet Keep America Great messages thousands of times a day.
“Time to walk away Dems and vote RED in the primaries,” she declared in one of her tweets.
While her goal is simply to advance the agenda of a president she adores, she and her friends have been swept up in an expanded effort by Twitter and other social media
companies to crack down on nefarious tactics used to meddle in the 2016 election.
And without meaning to, the tweeters have demonstrated the difficulty such crackdowns face — particularly when it comes to telling a political die-hard from a surreptitious computer robot.
Twitter and other sites have targeted automated or robot-like accounts
known as bots, which authorities say were used to cloak efforts by foreign governments and political bad actors in the 2016 elections.
But the screening has repeatedly and erroneously flagged Tomasieski and users like her.
Their accounts have been suspended or frozen for “suspicious” behaviour — apparently because of the frequency and relentlessness of their messages. When they started tweeting support for a conservative lawmaker in the GOP primary for Illinois governor this spring, news stories warned that right-wing “propaganda bots” were trying to influence the election.
“Almost all of us are considered a bot,” says Tomasieski, who lives in Tennessee.
Cynthia Smith has been locked out of her account and “shadow banned,” meaning tweets aren’t as visible to others, because of suspected “automated behaviour”.
“I’m a gal in Southern California,” Smith said. “I am no bot.”
The actions have drawn criticism from conservatives, who have accused Twitter, Facebook and other companies of having a liberal bias and censorship. —