Twitter Drops ‘Britain First’ Leader and Other Alt-Right Accounts

Company said it’s cracking down on accounts that “affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence”

Britain First Jayda

Twitter has banned several far-right hate groups and personalities on Monday, including Jayda Fransen, whose Anti-Muslim video tweets were infamously retweeted by President Trump last month, as part of its increased measures to crack down on “hateful and abusive content” on its platform.

Britain First, an anti-immigrant group where Fransen is deputy leader, also had its account suspended on Monday. Fransen’s three videos retweeted by President Trump claimed to show a Muslim migrant attacking a Dutch boy on crutches, along with an “Islamist mob” pushing a boy off a roof and a Muslim wrecking a statue of the Virgin Mary. Twitter received widespread blowback for leaving the videos up in the aftermath; Fransen, on the other hand, tweeted in all caps “GOD BLESS YOU TRUMP!”

Fransen has a history of anti-Muslim actions; she was “found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment in November 2016 after abusing a Muslim woman wearing a hijab while she was with her four children,” according to CNN.

Britain First wasn’t the only group purged by Twitter on Monday, however. The accounts for Jared Taylor — who once wrote “when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears” in 2005 — and his white nationalist group, American Resistance, were dropped from Twitter. The American Nazi Party also had its account suspended.

Twitter did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on other groups that could be suspended from the platform.

As part of its updated Twitter Rules, the company said it wouldn’t tolerate accounts that post “specific threats of violence or wishing for serious physical harm, death, or disease to an individual or group of people.” Accounts that “affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes” will also be dropped.

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/942756383593660416

Comments