Twitter suspends account that helped ignite controversy over viral encounter
Source: CNN
New York (CNN Business)Twitter suspended an account on Monday afternoon that helped spread a controversial encounter between a Native American elder and a group of high school students wearing Make America Great Again hats.
The account claimed to belong to a California schoolteacher. Its profile photo was not of a schoolteacher, but of a blogger based in Brazil, CNN Business found. Twitter suspended the account soon after CNN Business asked about it.
The account, with the username @2020fight, was set up in December 2016 and appeared to be the tweets of a woman named Talia living in California. "Teacher & Advocate. Fighting for 2020," its Twitter bio read. Since the beginning of this year, the account had tweeted on average 130 times a day and had more than 40,000 followers.
Late on Friday, the account posted a minute-long video showing the now-iconic confrontation between a Native American elder and the high school students, with the caption, "This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March."
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/tech/twitter-suspends-account-native-american-maga-teens/index.html
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Who tweets 130 times a day, but someone or someTHING on a mission. And the mission is probably not good. She/he is not even in America, but in Brazil, but says "she" is a woman living in California.
That's what a troll looks like and what a troll does, I guess. Twitter account properly deleted. There are probably thousands more like her/him/it.
Glad CNN asked Twitter about that account!
inwiththenew
(972 posts)An average of 130 tweets a day for 2 years? Who the hell has time to do that?
Fuzzpope
(602 posts)Happened many times during the Bush Co years, I personally fought at least two serious ones.
Not all voices are bots, don't make that mistake, they cannot and will not replace the human potential for stirring on the fly hatred and chaos.
StrangeDaysAhead
(10 posts)FTA:
Twitter's rules forbid users from creating "fake and misleading accounts," and shortly after CNN Business asked Twitter about the account, it was suspended.
Oh, so now CNN is trying to back-off under pressure from the Reich-Wing and claim to have been misled by a Twitter-Bot from Brazile.
Well bullshit CNN. We all have seen Smirky McSmirkface harassing the Vietnam Vet Native American Elder. It's obvious that a Trumpster inspired bot farm has edited and faked the videos in order to sow confusion and shift the narrative!
We know what we have seen.
We will not be deterred.
Did I mention that I HATE THE GOP!
mastermind
(229 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,590 posts)Sounds like the Russians are continuing their BS propaganda to divide America due to our well known racist attitudes.
I am SOOOOOO glad that tRump and the GOP are making this country safe from more outside interference in time for our next presidential election.
Sapient Donkey
(1,568 posts)I see questionable social media accounts from all sides of every issue whose primary goal seems to stir the pot and be as divisive as possible. Obviously not all of them are bots, as such people have always been around, but the bots and human conTrolled (see what I did there? I crack myself up) accounts are totally amplifying the more divisive/unproductive content.
Despite trying to be hyper-aware and perhaps even paranoid of it, I too find myself getting caught up into it. And in cases like this it's even more difficult because those boys are very hateable. But then I start seeing things that are said and suggested, and it's just not helpful. Then when you look into some of these people from all sides saying some of the most awful things, you find that they are clearly only interested causing more division.
We often see protest signs that say "love trumps hate". I think that's a good mindset to aim for.
UpInArms
(51,282 posts)Spending time in Brazil
WhiteHat
(129 posts)The first thing they would do is screen off Trump's "millions of followers" to a more honest and realistic number.
The second thing they would do is to check Trump's tweets for signifiers of racism.
The third thing they would do would provide at least a disclaimer for factual inaccuracies in Trump's tweets.
But no. Of course they wouldn't/couldn't or at least WON'T do that. They PROFIT from it all, or seem to.
By GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), Twitter LOSES MONEY with every tweet. if you doubt that, check their profitability, they have NEVER turned a profit. That might make Twitter management either the most brilliant corporate management of their generation, or the most awful ripofffs of their generation. You pick.
IronLionZion
(45,433 posts)flagging based on the number of tweets each day can be a start.
reggaehead
(269 posts)And she followed me. She did not tweet 140 times a day. That is absolutely false. She maybe tweeted 13 times a day. She was not a bot. She is from California. And she is a school teacher. As for her profile picture. I'll take their word on that and only that.
Sapient Donkey
(1,568 posts)her account doesn't seem "bot-like"/troll-like in tone. It seems like a real person who isn't pushing for extreme actions and isn't divisive at all. Takes a very appropriate tone (I think) of let this be a teaching moment. So, if that is a troll account like the ones we so often see from the "MAGA team", then the ones trying to manipulate more liberal minded folks are much better at their job. Although, I'm not sure what the goal would be in this case, as that sets a tone of the complete opposite of what they usually do.
I just did a superficial skimming of the tweets, and I think I'm with you about it not being a bot. I could be wrong though, as there is only a small subset of tweets I was able to read on the archives. Maybe twitter just did it for using someone else' picture of their profile. If it is a teacher then I can't blame them for not using their own picture on social media.