Twitter Fake Accounts Removed Due to Posing as Black Trump Supporters

Social media giant Twitter has removed a select group of fake accounts that were pretending to be owned by Black supporters of President Donald Trump, according to The Hill.

As we get closer to the presidential election, the attempt to sway Black people to vote for Donald Trump has been ramped up as the support among Blacks is very low. Darren Linvill posted on his Twitter account that he helped work on the piece that revealed the fake Black Twitter accounts.

Pleased to have worked on this great piece with @craigtimberg & @isaacstanbecker. This network really points to the difficulty the platforms have playing whack-a-mole with disinformation accounts. 1/5 https://t.co/YrX1aIGHH3

— Darren Linvill (@DarrenLinvill) October 13, 2020

Most of these accounts were using “digital black face” and pretended to be Black American #MAGA supporters. They used images of real Americans in their profiles. Several had tens of thousands of followers and received many thousands of retweets and likes. 2/5 pic.twitter.com/Dk8NGnEQ2z

— Darren Linvill (@DarrenLinvill) October 13, 2020

These accounts were actively being identified by users on Twitter, even while spreading like wildfire through specific echo chambers. 3/5https://t.co/9WzfGs7Piq

— Darren Linvill (@DarrenLinvill) October 13, 2020

They weren’t just pretending to be Black Conservatives however. There were also accounts purporting to be a white officer in Philly, Erica Kious (Pelosi hair stylist), and a few of Kayleigh McEnany. 4/5 pic.twitter.com/cvib7bAlj0

— Darren Linvill (@DarrenLinvill) October 13, 2020

Remember, almost all accounts are real people . . . but troll are out there trying to influence our conversations before November. If you have a moment, go take the Spot the Troll quiz at https://t.co/W5Bhz3VEBr. It might help make you a little more vigilant and resilient. 5/5

— Darren Linvill (@DarrenLinvill) October 13, 2020

“Our teams are working diligently to investigate this activity and will take action in line with the Twitter Rules if Tweets are found to be in violation. Presently, we’ve taken action on some of the Tweets and accounts … for violations of our policies on platform manipulation and spam,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Hill.