Corbyn ‘must act’ over fake social media accounts

JEREMY CORBYN has been urged to tackle fake automated accounts that are promoting his messages on Twitter by a former chairman of the culture and media select committee.

Damian Collins, a Tory MP, said parties should take the rise of fake social media accounts seriously and called on the Labour leader to take a “zero-tolerance approach” to the so-called bots.

A Telegraph investigation has found that Labour is benefiting from accounts set up to look like genuine users but whose sole purpose is to share messages of support for Labour during the election.

Analysts at Oxford University said the practice is “megaphoning marginal viewpoints”. They found that more than 20,000 tweets mentioning Labour were sent by automated accounts in just one week.

Mr Collins said social media must be more tightly policed during elections and called on political leaders to act, adding that “there’s no body that oversees these sort of issues, the social media companies don’t think they have responsibility for it”.

He said the rules and regulations governing elections “are not fit for the digital age and we need to look seriously at the way people use bots to push messages on Twitter or Facebook”. Asked whether Mr Corbyn should begin an investigation he said: “I think all political parties should have a zero-tolerance approach if their members are using fake accounts and bots to push messages; it shouldn’t be tolerated.”