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Policy

Twitter is booting more than a million fake accounts a day

The site has, finally, upped its efforts to weed out suspicious users.

By the numbers: According to the Washington Post, more than 70 million Twitter profiles were suspended in May and June. Things have kept up so far in July as well.

Double the bans: The pace of suspensions is twice what it was in October of last year. As of the end of the first quarter of 2018, Twitter had 336 million remaining active users.

Why it matters: The platform’s newfound zeal for knocking down bots and trolls is a long-delayed response to Russia’s use of social media to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election. With America's 2018 midterm elections coming up in November, we’ll soon see how much of an impact the changes have.

This story first appeared in our daily newsletter, The Download. Sign up here.

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