Twitter suspends pro-Bloomberg accounts for violating manipulation and spam policies

Josh Lederman and Maura Barrett and Rebecca Shabad
·1 min read

WASHINGTON — Twitter said it was suspending dozens of accounts that have been pushing content in favor of former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign.

Twitter confirmed late Friday that it was suspending the accounts because it said that they were violating the platform’s manipulation and spam policies.

“We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam,” a Twitter spokesperson said.

Some accounts have been permanently suspended while others are under review to verify ownership.

The media giant said that these accounts violated its rules because they circulated the same copy-and-pasted content, which Twitter instituted rules against after Russia bot accounts used the same technique in 2016.

The decision to suspend the 70 accounts was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which published a screenshot image that showed a number of accounts that posted the same exact tweet: “A President Is Born: Barbra Streisand sings Mike’s praises. Check out her tweet,” and then they provided a link.

“We ask that all of our deputy field organizers identify themselves as working on behalf of the Mike Bloomberg 2020 campaign on their social media accounts. Through Outvote content is shared by staffers and volunteers to their network of friends and family and was not intended to mislead anyone,” said Bloomberg spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.

This comes after Bloomberg's campaign said this week that it hired 500 deputy field organizers to conduct digital and in-person engagement. The campaign said Wednesday that these staffers are posting their own content on their own social media accounts.