VIOLATION

Twitter Suspends New Hampshire GOP Account for Impersonating Democratic Candidate

The account impersonated Dan Feltes, a gubernatorial primary candidate.

Twitter took down an account run by the New Hampshire Republican Party on Thursday that impersonated a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, The Wall Street Journal reports. The New Hampshire Democratic Party reported the account mimicking Dan Feltes, a gubernatorial primary candidate, on Wednesday after the account started tweeting messages and videos attacking Feltes. The account, using the handle @Feltes2020, had a profile photo that was similar to Feltes’ campaign logo and no disclaimer that the Republicans ran the account. Twitter permanently suspended the account for violating its impersonation policy.

New Hampshire GOP's spokesman, Joe Sweeney, confirmed he ran the account but said the Democrats have done the same in the past. A Democratic aide told the Journal that while they also ran mock accounts, they included a disclaimer alerting users that the account was “a project of the @NHDems,” which would be permitted under Twitter rules because it was a parody account.