A Twitter account posting blatantly misleading information about how to vote in the presidential election has been suspended by the social media giant.
The account @theRickyVaughn tweeted out a series of images– some of which appeared to be targeted at minority voters– asking Clinton supporters to “text” their votes to a number instead of going to the polls.
The graphics, which included the Clinton campaign’s official logo, encouraged voters to “avoid the line, vote from home” and “Text Hillary to 5995.” One graphic featured an African American woman and another said in Spanish “Save Time, Avoid the Lines. Vote from Home or Work.”
The images were reported by another Twitter user and flagged by Rick Hasen on his Election Law Blog. The Twitter user who reported the graphics also tweeted that he’d received an email from Twitter saying that the graphics didn’t violate Twitter’s rules.
Twitter just informed me that attempting to disenfranchise voters is not a violation of their Terms of Service. @jack @Support pic.twitter.com/YXVdt8sHwA
— Robert McNees (@mcnees) November 2, 2016
Twitter declined to comment on the status of the individual’s account, but a search of @therickyvaughn shows the account has been suspended.
Twitter actually did something responsible? Oh, it was after being shamed into doing so, got it.
Guessing the Real Ricky Vaughn doesn’t have a lot of Latino followers anyway, but deplorable nonetheless.
That’s what I was thinking, as well. Nonetheless, I’m glad to hear Twitter closed the account. I personally don’t tweet and generally have no issues with social media, but I believe they all should be held responsible for bad actions and be commended when they do the right thing.
Considering that paid Kremlin trolls are no joke, and they are all over Twitter, good and double plus good for Twitter.
Is the person who operated the account vulnerable to criminal voter suppression charges?