Call it a purge. A lockout. A censorship campaign. Regardless of the term, conservative and far-right Twitter users are furious about the loss of thousands of followers overnight, with influencers and partisans particularly inflamed by what they perceive to be a targeted attack by the social platform.

Twitter confirmed Wednesday that it's cleaning up the site, saying it "enforces our rules without political bias" as part of its ongoing effort to confirm that followers are actual humans.  This isn't the first time Twitter has taken action against a large number of accounts. Most recently it's been combating persistent Russian-tied activity around nearly every hot-button topic. 

"Twitter's tools are apolitical," the company said in an emailed statement. "As part of our ongoing work in safety, we identify suspicious account behaviors that indicate automated activity or violations of our policies around having multiple accounts, or abuse. We also take action on any accounts we find that violate our terms of service, including asking account owners to confirm a phone number so we can confirm a human is behind it. That's why some people may be experiencing suspensions or locks."

While Twitter didn't provide details on the number of accounts affected by the sweep, conservative critics, including white nationalist Richard Spencer, complained about losing thousands of their followers. They're posting under the hashtag #TwitterLockout.