Twitter removes 50 accounts posing as Republican party members in pre-election crackdown

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Twitter is under pressure to prevent foreign meddling in US politics Credit: AP

Twitter has removed 50 accounts posing as Republican party members as it seeks to crack down on fake users ahead of next month’s crucial US elections.

The company said it was acting to “protect the integrity of elections” by banning users who had stolen profile information from others.

As part of the crackdown, the company said it had deleted “approximately 50 accounts misrepresenting themselves as members of various state Republican parties”.

It said it was deleting 9.4 million accounts a week overall as it battles a wave of fake users. The company recently deleted hundreds of accounts tied to Russia and Iran after finding they were attempting to meddle in US and UK politics.

Twitter said it would now ban accounts that use tactics often employed by fake accounts, including using photos or profile information stolen from other users, or if their location information is misleading.

Fake accounts run from Russia and used during the 2016 US election would typically claim to be tweeting from a US state.

Twitter added that it would ban users who simply create new accounts after being banned, and accounts that are meant to mimic banned users.

Earlier this year, Twitter allowed candidates in the upcoming midterm elections to add a special label to their account verifying that they were running, in an attempt to thwart impersonators.

The recent discovery of dozens of accounts imitating Republican party members suggests that attempts to influence US politics may have advanced into malicious actors posing as politicians, although Twitter did not expand on the accounts it had closed.

Its new rules also include a crackdown on accounts that post information stolen in cyber attacks, or threaten to hack others. It is unclear how the rule change will affect so-called “hacktivist” groups such as Anonymous, a group that has claimed responsibility for shutting down neo-Nazi websites and called on followers to attack Donald Trump.