Twitter Suspends Bot Account That Calls People Out For Tweeting ‘Illegal Immigrant’

*Anytime someone Tweeted the words “illegal alien” the bot would Tweet a reply calling them out on their choice of language. It worked for several days, until Twitter suspended the account. Here’s why. VL


colorlines By Kenrya Rankin Naasel, Color Lines

Late last month, Jorge Rivas and Patrick Hogan launched a Twitter bot that corrects people who include the phrase “illegal immigrant” in their tweets. Today, Twitter suspended the bot’s account.

[pullquote]”… a bot that crawled Twitter every ten minutes and replied to people who tweet “illegal immigrant”[/pullquote]

Following in the footsteps of the White House and the Associated Press, the journalists wanted to let the interwebs know that the preferred terms for people living in the United States without authorization are “undocumented immigrants” or “unauthorized immigrants.” So they created a bot—@DropTheIBot—that crawled Twitter every ten minutes and replied to people (never the same person twice, to avoid spamming) who tweet “illegal immigrant” with the following message: People aren’t illegal. Try saying “undocumented immigrant” or “unauthorized immigrant” instead.

 

But as of this morning, the account has been suspended.

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[Photo by keiyac/Flickr]
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