REUTERS/Leah Millis
- President Trump retweeted a Twitter account with a history of pushing conspiracy theories on Tuesday.
- The retweeted post said Democrats are "the true enemies of America."
- Twitter later suspended the account in question, and a source familiar with the matter told the Daily Beast it had been suspended for violating rules about operating multiple accounts to "artificially amplify or disrupt conversations."
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President Trump on Tuesday retweeted a tweet from an account rife with conspiracy theory. Later that day, Twitter suspended the account.
The account, the name of which was "Lynn Thomas" and whose handle was "@LYNNTHO06607841" tweeted a meme calling Democrats the "the true enemies of America." The meme was accompanied by a tweet which read "democrats are the only ones interfering in our elections." Vox reporter Aaron Rupar screenshotted the President’s retweet.
Rupar also spotted that the account had previously posted a meme accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of torturing, killing, and eating children.
Later on Tuesday Twitter suspended the account. A source told the Daily Beast the suspension was due to the account breaking Twitter’s rules on users having multiple accounts to "artificially amplify or disrupt conversations."
Twitter was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Business Insider, the suggestion to the Daily Beast was that the account could have been a bot account.
This isn’t the first time Trump has retweeted questionable accounts.
Last year Trump apologised for retweeting a video from Islamophobic British far-right group Britain First. In May of this year, following a Facebook clamp-down on hate speech, the president retweeted a slew of conspiracy theorists and far-right figures.
Trump also has a history of retweeting bots, hundreds of which were linked back to Russian influence campaigns by Twitter.
The president has posed a particular problem for Twitter, as his tweets fall under the platform’s definition of "newsworthy." Critics have called on Twitter to enforce community guidelines rules against his more violent tirades. Twitter announced in March that it would label tweets from public figures which broke its rules— Trump included — meaning users would have to click past a card flagging if a tweet broke Twitter’s rules on "dehumanization," for example.
How Twitter enforces this rule is still unclear, however. After Trump tweeted that a group of Congresswomen of color should "go back" to their countries of origin, Twitter said the tweet didn’t violate its rules, although it declined to explain why.
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton)