Black voters are being targeted in disinformation campaigns, echoing the 2016 Russian playbook

The account, @WentDemtoRep, offered an online testimonial Sunday — the eve of a Republican convention featuring prominent African Americans challenging allegations of racism against President Trump — and was retweeted 22,000 times. Disinformation researcher Marc Owen Jones, of Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, found the tweet had 39,000 likes just 19 hours after it was posted.

Twitter removed the account Tuesday for policy violations after it had amassed 15,000 followers despite tweeting just a few times, all this month. The rapid spread of the tweet underscored how easily deceptive messages spread online — and how far they can get before social media companies are able to curb them.

“I’ve been a Democrat my whole life,” the tweet said, according to archived versions showing that the account was created this month, supposedly from Arizona. “I joined the BLM protests months ago when they began. They opened my eyes wide! I didn’t realize I became a Marxist. It happened w/o me even knowing it. I’m done with this trash. I’ll be registering Republican.”