Twitter Do's and Don'ts: Staying Sane On Social Media

Twitter has sharply escalated its battle against fake and
suspicious accounts, suspending more than 1 million a day in recent
months, a major shift to lessen the flow of disinformation on the
platform, according to data obtained by The Washington Post. The
rate of account suspensions, which Twitter confirmed to The Post,
has more than doubled since October, when the company revealed
under congressional pressure how Russia used fake accounts to
interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Twitter suspended more
than 70 million accounts in May and June, and the pace has
continued in July, according to the data. The aggressive removal of
unwanted accounts may result in a rare decline in the number of
monthly users in the second quarter, which ended June 30, according
to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to
speak. Twitter declined to comment on a possible decline in its
user base. Twitter’s growing campaign against bots and
trolls?—?coming despite the risk to the company’s user growth?—?is
part of the continuing fallout from Russia’s disinformation
offensive during the 2016 presidential campaign, when a St.
Petersburg-based troll factory was able to use some of America’s
most prominent technology platforms to deceive voters on a mass
scale to exacerbate social and political tensions. The extent of
account suspensions, which has not previously been reported, is one
of several recent moves by Twitter to limit the influence of people
it says are abusing its platform. The changes, which were the
subject of internal debate, reflect a philosophical shift for
Twitter. Its executives long resisted policing misbehavior more
aggressively, for a time even referring to themselves as “the free
speech wing of the free speech party.”
Courtesy https://wapo.st/2LRpwDw