#TwitterLockout blocks conservative users, requires phone number

UPDATE: Feb. 21, 2018, 1:20 p.m. ESTTwitter responded to the outcry over conservative users' accounts being blocked Tuesday evening by saying its actions had no political skew and they were part of the company's safety effort. A spokesperson directed Mashable to Twitter's enforcement page and sent this statement:

"Twitter’s tools are apolitical, and we enforce our rules without political bias. As part of our ongoing work in safety, we identify suspicious account behaviors that indicate automated activity or violations of our policies around having multiple accounts, or abuse. We also take action on any accounts we find that violate our terms of service, including asking account owners to confirm a phone number so we can confirm a human is behind it. That’s why some people may be experiencing suspensions or locks. Note that when an account is locked and being challenged to provide a phone number, it is removed from follower counts until it provides a phone number. This is part of our ongoing, comprehensive efforts to make Twitter safer and healthier for everyone."

Original story follows below.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Twitter users were locked out of their accounts Tuesday night, inspiring the hashtag #TwitterLockout.

The reason is unclear but evidence suggests a bot purge that may have flagged certain accounts inaccurately. Locked-out users were instructed to share a phone number with Twitter in order to regain access to their accounts.

SEE ALSO: Why Twitter's future just got even darker

The event is just the latest sign that Twitter is taking action against bot accounts, and yet continues to not be transparent or talk about the problem. That's long been Twitter's strategy, as Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton recently wrote.

Twitter has been quite silent about the issue, except in a brief response to the New York Timesinvestigation on Devumi, a company selling fake followers. Prior to the story's publication, Twitter said it's aware of the problem and has a team that addresses the issues. But Twitter didn't immediately provide an update when Mashable asked about a bot purge shortly thereafter.

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From Tuesday to Wednesday, Gab, a social network that claims to be dedicated to free speech, received thousands of reports from users on its own site and after a Twitter callout, CEO Andrew Torba told Mashable.

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Hundreds of users replied with screenshots of their accounts being locked and personal anecdotes of using followers:

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Many of those users identify as conservative in their Twitter bios. Torba suggested the company was maliciously collecting phone number data from their conservative users. Verifying with a phone number is a common practice for authenticating accounts across social networks, however. He also called attention to Twitter's ongoing issues with impersonating accounts tricking other users into sharing bitcoin, as BuzzFeed's Ryan Mac reported.

“Twitter has a massive crypto scam bot epidemic plaguing the site, but their priorities are locking thousands of conservative human beings out of their accounts to collect their phone number data. The public sentiment towards Big Tech and Silicon Valley in general is rapidly turning negative," Torba told Mashable.

"The one thing folks on both the left and the right of the political spectrum share very strongly is their growing rage against Silicon Valley. It may be for different reasons, but it’s something all of us can unite around," he added.

Affected users also have flagged the company's ongoing controversy around verification. Twitter paused its verification program back in November after it verified Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that resulted in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer.

Twitter later announced an update that it would not accept public submissions and said it would remove verification from accounts that violated its guidelines. Last month, David A. Clarke, Jr., the former Milwaukee sheriff and loyal supporter for President Trump, had his verification badge removed. Twitter has repeatedly suspended him for violating its terms.

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Twitter is still verifying other users. For example, Twitter verified Emma Gonzalez, one of the students who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Twitter also recently verified Scott Rogowsky, a host of trivia app HQ, who has been quite internet famous since last fall.

But Twitter has so far stayed silent on a formal update to its verification program.

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