Bots brimming on Brexit Party's Twitter account: Report

Bots brimming on Brexit Party's Twitter account: Report

Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farag

London, May 20 (IANS) Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farag's Brexit Party has thousands of fake followers on its Twitter account who appear to be bots.

According to BuzzFeed News, researchers have found that 7 per cent of its Twitter accounts are networks of bots and other inauthentic users.

Researcher Andy Patel from cyber security firm F-Secure said the bots were producing massive volumes of tweets focused on Brexit, and clearly in unrealistic amounts.

One account has sent more than 23,000 tweets in its first three months on the platform, nearly all of them about Brexit.

"Another account sent 823 tweets on the topic in a single day, mostly retweets and many just seconds apart," the report said late Sunday, quoting researchers.

Twitter has banned at least seven of the suspicious accounts.

"Of the accounts brought to our attention, we took strong enforcement action against those that are currently in violation of our rules and we will continue to robustly enforce our policies where appropriate," Twitter said in a statement.

The micro-blogging platform, however, has not found evidence of a coordinated plot behind the bot activities.

"We are no more able to control the creation of Twitter accounts by individuals or organisations with whom we have no connection than we are able to control the weather," a spokesperson for the Brexit Party was quoted as saying.

--IANS

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