Twitter Suspends Pro-Trump Accounts

According to BuzzFeed News, Twitter suspended several accounts that tweeted the pro-Trump message "I hired Donald Trump to fire people like Yovanovitch." "Yovanovitch" refers to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified at the House impeachment hearings yesterday. Her testimony is considered by some to be damaging to the president.

The phrase began trending on the platform and Twitter immediately suspected a fake influence campaign aided by bots.

BuzzFeed News reports that "The way the phrase has spread does not appear to be completely authentic. At least 7,320 tweets (including retweets) were posted that included the words posted in the first 45 minutes, according to an analysis conducted by BuzzFeed News. Within that time period, 83 accounts tweeted or retweeted the phrase over 10 times each."

In fact, some of those accounts were definitely suspicious:

Of the biggest amplifiers, the five most prolific accounts tweeted the phrase every 4 to 33 seconds

A representative for Twitter said the company was looking into whether the activity was coordinated. Later in the day, several accounts in BuzzFeed News’ data set were suspended.

Twitter subsequently told BuzzFeed News that its initial investigations had not found evidence of bot activity amplifying the phrase.

Indeed, both Twitter and BuzzFeed News appear to have jumped to conclusions:

Although the tweet may have been amplified by automated activity, it does not appear to have originated in an inauthentic way. The first account to post “I hired Donald Trump to fire people like Yovanovitch" was a real person — Cari Kelemen, a pro-Trump influencer — whose  tweet was retweeted by Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist and host on One America News Network.

Was the only reason the phrase was targeted for enforcement was that some tweeters of it appeared to be inauthentic? Or was political bias involved in Twitter's decision?  I sympathize with Twitter's dilemma in this instance, but we're talking about political speech on a very political issue. Don't you think they could have been more careful before suspending some accounts?

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