LESS USEFUL IDIOTS:

In a private "strategy chat" with more than 40 far-right trolls, one user who tried to create a new Twitter account to spread disinformation ahead of Tuesday's midterms elections described how he had hit an immediate roadblock: Twitter banned him for deliberately giving out the wrong election date.

"Were they really banning people for saying [vote on] November 7? Lol, whoops," the user, whose name was a racist joke about Native Americans, wrote. "Maybe that's what got me shadowbanned."

The remark, seen by NBC News in a closed chat room used for planning and executing misinformation efforts, suggested that the changes that Twitter has undertaken in the past two years to avoid a repeat of the 2016 U.S. election may be working. Two years ago, the company did little to police misinformation and allowed a Russian influence campaign and politically motivated trolls to thrive.

A screenshot from a private chat in which a social media troll described getting blocked by Twitter from spreading misinformation A screenshot from a private chat in which a social media troll described getting blocked by Twitter from spreading misinformation

But the trolls are also learning from their mistakes and developing new strategies to sidestep Twitter's rules -- sometimes with new technology available on other apps -- highlighting the arms race between these groups and social media companies that are developing systems to stop them.

While much of its focus has been on foreign operations, Twitter has ramped up preventative measures against domestic troll networks that organize in private chats to push coordinated disinformation on their platform. On Friday, Twitter revealed it took down 10,000 accounts that discouraged voting, mostly accounts posing as Democrats.

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