Twitter suspended an account that helped spread a video of the weekend’s incident between teenagers wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and a Native American, which has been at the center of controversy for several days now.
CNN reports that the social media platform suspended the @2020fight account, which appeared to be left-leaning, after the news outlet inquired about the account’s profile photo not being who they claimed they were.
The @2020fight account claimed to be a “teacher & advocate” named Talia, and as of Sunday had more than 41,000 followers. Late last week the account posted a clip of the confrontation between students from a Kentucky high school and Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder, that was shared more than 14,000 times and viewed more than two million times, according to CNN.
A spokesperson for Twitter told CNN that “deliberate attempts to manipulate the public conversation on Twitter by using misleading account information is a violation of the Twitter Rules” when asked about the account.
The news outlet spoke to several experts who questioned the authenticity of the account, and one who said it appears the video was being shared and spread by anonymous accounts. Another said the behavior of @2020fight raised questions.
Rob McDonagh, an editor at Storyful, told CNN Business he thought the account was suspicious because of its “high follower count, highly polarized and yet inconsistent political messaging, the unusually high rate of tweets, and the use of someone else’s image in the profile photo.”
You can read all of CNN’s report here.
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