Twitter is cracking down on bots, but the social media platform may be using the wrong strategy.
That’s according to Taylor Lorenz, technology reporter at The Daily Beast, who says Twitter should revamp its trending algorithm.
“They need to police it in some way, because the garbage is always going to rise to the top,” she said.
Earlier this week Twitter purged an unspecified number of suspected bot accounts without warning in an attempt to crack down on the spread of fake news.
Lorenz says the secrecy was partially because the company’s “bot protection technology was so bad.”
Still, several right-wing trolls and conspiracy theorists lost a bunch of followers. They in turn lashed out, accusing Twitter of deliberately targeting conservatives.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/is-twitters-crackdown-on-bots-a-little-too-late).
Skype users are scrambling to find an alternative after Microsoft shut down the pioneering internet phone service which let people make cheap long distance calls and chat with other users. Google Voice lets users make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser but it's only available to people in the U.S. Viber users can call phone numbers but can't get a number to receive calls. Zoom offers phone options too. You could get a number from a low cost virtual carrier or try other internet phone services. Microsoft says some Skype features will migrate to Teams, but its Teams Phone feature is only for businesses.
