Twitter U-turns over banning white nationalist

[demmiblue]

Source: The Guardian



Twitter has reinstated the account of Richard B Spencer, a self-styled white nationalist leader who was suspended from the service in the wake of a much-publicised crackdown on hateful conduct.

Spencer’s account was initially suspended on 15 November, as part of a sweeping move against leaders of the “alt-right”, a far-right movement which has been resurgent in America since the election of Donald Trump.

That same day, Twitter had announced new safety tools on its social network, including the ability to more easily report hateful conduct. It had also announced changes in how it trained its moderators to enforce the policies.

The suspension of Spencer, along with the accounts of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute which he heads up and its journal, Radix, was widely seen as a consequence of Twitter putting those new rules in action.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/12/twitter-u-turn-banning-white-nationalist-richard-b-spencer-alt-right?CMP=twt_gu

---

Wonderful, just wonderful.

[secondwind]

1. WTF is going on????????!!!!!! This is the Twilight Zone

[UncleTomsEvilBrother]

2. Continuing to look in Amazement

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8356156

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

3. They realized white nationalism is about to become mainstream and don't want to lose out

Just like Trump

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Twitter banned white nationalist leader Richard Spencer. Now he's back.

Twitter banned white nationalist leader Richard Spencer. Now he's back.

By Abby Ohlheiser

https://twitter.com/abbyohlheiser

December 11 at 11:22 PM

When Twitter suspended Richard Spencer just after the elections, the white nationalist said the platform was purging people on the basis of their views. On Saturday, Twitter said that Spencer's account had been restored and that, despite widespread assumptions that Spencer was banned for violating the sites prohibition on hateful conduct, or harassment, he was actually booted from the platform for violating its policy against having multiple, overlapping accounts. ... Spencer's personal account reappeared on Twitter on Saturday night, complete with the blue verification check mark he had before his suspension.
....

Spencer is responsible for coining the term alt-right, and has emerged from the online fringe and been put in the spotlight of several national, mainstream media outlets in the weeks since Donald Trump was elected president. Spencer has become the public face of the white nationalist movement that supported Trump, one that believes the next four years are the best chance white supremacists have to gain ground in the mainstream.
....

He is, in a way, a walking euphemism for white supremacy: alt-right is a softer, blanket term for a coalition of online activists with disparate points of view embraced by groups that support racist, anti-Semitic or sexist views. He dresses in Brooks Brothers suits and prefers to call himself identitarian instead of racist. As The Post's John Woodrow Cox pointed out in a profile of Spencer, even his organizations have boring-sounding names: Radix journal, National Policy Institute.
....

Pax Dickinson, Paul Town, Ricky Vaughn and John Rivers — all members of the alt-right movement — also had their accounts suspended around that time, leading to a widely popular theory among their supporters that Twitter was trying to purge the site of political views it didn’t like. Although Twitter didn’t give a specific reason at the time for those suspensions, the bans led many of their supporters to seek out other platforms, such as Gab, a Twitter and Reddit-like social network that’s popular with Trump supporters who don’t trust most of Silicon Valley.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Spencer tries to project magnetic, powerful eyes in photos, but he just looks stupid.

He may fancy himself a great super-race idol, a god. He simply looks pathetic, and comical.

[center]

[ManiacJoe]

6. The ban was for having multiple accounts.

According to the linked article.

[demon in basement]

7. Twitter & Facebook are Spineless

They'll serve Putin well.

[FiveGoodMen]

8. The normalization continues