Twitter bars tactics used by 'bots' to spread false stories

Twitter Inc. saidon Wednesday it would no longer allow people to post identicalmessages from multiple accounts, cracking down on a tactic thatRussian agents and others have allegedly used to make tweets ortopics go viral.

The San Francisco-based social network also said it wouldnot allow people to use software to simultaneously perform otheractions such as liking or retweeting from multiple accounts.

Twitter, known for freewheeling discussions in shortmessages, is under pressure from users and Western governmentsto stem the spread of false news and foreign propaganda, oftendone with the help of automated accounts known as bots.

Twitter bots disseminated propaganda before the 2016 U.S.electionand have continued to inflame U.S. politics undercover of anonymity, academic researchers and U.S. authoritiessay.

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

Twitter's new restrictions are aimed at improving"information quality," Yoel Roth of the company's policy teamsaid.

"These changes are an important step in ensuring we stayahead of malicious activity targeting the crucial conversationstaking place on Twitter including elections in the UnitedStates and around the world," Roth said in a statement.

Posting identical messages to multiple accounts, orsimultaneously retweeting or liking a message from multipleaccounts, could help vault something into Twitter's trendinglist, giving a false impression of how viral it is among realpeople.

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

Twitter has cracked down on other violations of its terms ofservice, including fake accounts by people inflating theirfollowing.

Conservative complaints

Some U.S. users with conservative politics complained theirnumber of followers had gone down after Twitter asked them toverify their identity. #TwitterLockOut was among the trendingtopics.

Former Twitter user Jared Taylor, editor of the whitesupremacist magazine American Renaissance, sued Twitter onTuesday in state court in San Francisco, saying the decision toban him violated California law governing "privately ownedpublic forums." Twitter did not respond to a request forcomment.

Another company, privately held online publisher Medium,recently removed accounts belonging to far-right U.S.commentators including Mike Cernovich, who said on his Twitteraccount on Wednesday that Medium was acting unlawfully.

Medium said it would not discuss individual accounts, but arecent rule change banned people from spreading"disinformation."