Twitter Deletes Fake Tennessee GOP Account Created by Russian Agency

Twitter was warned about a Russian account that claimed to represent the Tennessee Republican Party multiple times over 11 months before taking it down over the summer, according to a new report.

BuzzFeed News reported the @TEN_GOP account had at least 136,000 followers when Twitter permanently suspended the account in August. The account was created in November 2015 and was created by Russia's Internet Research Agency.

The real account for the Tennessee Republican Party is @tngop, which has 13,400 followers. Officials there told BuzzFeed they had contacted Twitter three times between September 2016 and August 2017 about the fraudulent account.

BuzzFeed reported the fake account eventually changed the text in its profile from "I love God, I Love my Country" to "Unofficial Twitter of Tennessee Republicans. Covering breaking news, national politics, foreign policy and more. #MAGA #2A."

Twitter made the decision to take down the account in August.

Another report this week claimed Russia's Internet Research Agency closed its doors last December but not before spreading fake news on social media via its "Department of Provocations."

The agency was reportedly financed by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There are several ongoing investigations probing Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with it.

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