Twitter steps up war against spam as US midterms loom

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Twitter said Wednesday that it is giving its users more freedom to report fake and suspicious accounts as it intensifies its crackdown on online spamming activities a few days ahead of US midterm elections.

Twitter announced the new measure through its official safety account by saying that it will not allow any attempts to manipulate or disrupt its service, which came shortly before the US midterm elections take place on November 6.

"You can now specify what type of spam you're seeing when you report, including fake accounts," @TwitterSafety said in a tweet.

Twitter will allow users to flag tweets as originating from a fake account or a bot which are impersonating as something or someone else, and mark them as "fake".

@TwitterSafety posts a tweet informing its users how to report spam and fake accounts. /VCG Photo

The new tool unveiled by Twitter is the latest step that the social media website has taken to combat malicious activities on its platform.

Twitter said in July that it had purged about 70 million accounts in May and June this year for conducting spamming or malicious behavior.

(Cover: Twitter App on a mobile device. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency