Russian Bot was behind death threat received by town’s MP
LOUGHBOROUGH MP Nicky Morgan says a Russian Bot was behind a death threat she received on Twitter.
Mrs Morgan suffered Jo Cox-style threats online earlier this summer over her stance on Brexit.
After campaigning to remain in the European Union Mrs Morgan reported tweets from two accounts in July to the police.
One of the tweets read: “We voted. When your vote is ignored all you are left with is violence. Nobody wants another Jo Cox episode but...”
Mrs Cox was Labour MP for Batley and Spen when she was murdered last June by a man who shot and stabbed her in the street while shouting “Britain first”.
Her attacker, Thomas Mair, was jailed for life for Mrs Cox’s murder in November last year.
Prosecutors said Mair was motivated by hate and his crimes were “nothing less than acts of terrorism”.
Twitter suspended the accounts after her complaint.
Mrs Morgan said: “The police traced one of the accounts to an address in London but there was no one there so they wrote a letter.
“An investigative journalist also looked into this and found that the account was a Russian Bot.”
Bots are software that autonomously perform actions such as tweeting, retweeting, liking, following, unfollowing, or direct messaging other accounts.
There has been growing concern that Russia has been attempting to influence and interfere in key political events in Western politics, such as Brexit and the election of US president Donald Trump.
Mrs Morgan was speaking after suffering a fresh wave of online abuse following a front page of the Daily Telegraph this week that used pictures of her and 14 other Tory pro-Remain MPs under the headline “The Brexit Mutineers” for rebelling against the Government on the EU withdrawal bill.
Mrs Morgan said: “As so often happens these days there has been abuse online but I have had plenty of support to from people who are concerned about the direction we are heading with Brexit.
“I am going to continue to scrutinise the Government. That is part of the job of every MP on issues that are as important as this.”
Some of the MPs on the Telegraph front page have described it as an attempt to bully them into silence.
Mrs Morgan called out the Daily Mail for ringing Conservatives in her constituency in the aftermath of the front page.
She tweeted: “So the Daily Mail is now calling round our constituencies and local parties asking how we represent our constituents - of course not interested when response is supportive & entirely missing the point that we were all elected or reelected just 5 months ago #AntiBullyingWeek”