(Bloomberg) -- Twitter apologized Saturday for suspending a number of accounts critical of China hours after Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted that the social-media company was acting as a "censor" for the Chinese government.
The company said the suspended accounts “were not mass reported by the Chinese authorities — this was a routine action on our part.”
The accounts were swept up in the company's ongoing efforts to challenge accounts “engaging in various forms of platform manipulation, including spam and other inauthentic behaviors," according to the company.
"Sometimes our routine actions catch false positives or we make errors," the company tweeted. "We apologize. We're working today to ensure we overturn any errors but that we remain vigilant in enforcing our rules for those who violate them."
Earlier Saturday, Rubio cited suspended accounts critical of China and retweeted several other postings commenting on the company's actions.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Linus Chua
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
