Twitter Cracks Down on Bots Spreading False Stories

Twitter is cracking down on bots after it announced changes to its API that will massively cut the impact of services that allow links and content to be shared across multiple accounts, i.e. the software that powers Twitter bots.

The company said on Wednesday it would not allow people to post identical messages anymore from multiple accounts, cracking down on a tactic that Russian agents and others have allegedly used to make tweets or topics go viral.

The San Francisco-based social network also said it would not allow people to use software to simultaneously perform other actions such as liking or retweeting from multiple accounts.

“These changes are an important step in ensuring we stay ahead of malicious activity targeting the crucial conversations taking place on Twitter — including elections in the United States and around the world,” Yoel Roth, who heads up API policy and product trust, for Twitter explained in a blog post.

Twitter, known for gliding discussions in short messages, is under pressure from users and Western governments to stem the spread of false news and foreign propaganda, often done with the help of automated accounts known as bots.

Twitter bots distributed propaganda before the 2016 U.S. elections and have continued to intensify U.S. politics under cover of anonymity, academic researchers and U.S. authorities say.

On Friday, the office of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russians and three Russian companies, including St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency known for trolling on social media. The court document said those accused "had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election."

Twitter's new restrictions are intended at improving "information quality," Roth said.

Posting identical messages to multiple accounts, or retweeting or liking a message from multiple accounts at the same time, could help jump over something into Twitter's trending list, giving a false impression of how viral it is among real people.

Twitter said it would give users until March 23 to comply before suspending accounts. It made an exception for bots of broad interest such as earthquake alerts.

Twitter has cracked down on other violations of its terms of service, including fake accounts by people inflating their following.

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