White supremacist David Duke was permanently banned from Twitter for violating the rules of the hate speech platform, the company confirmed late Thursday.
Duke's account "has been permanently blocked from Twitter rules for hateful behavior," a Twitter spokesman said in a statement. Twitter's policy, revised in March, prohibits posts that promote violence or threats of violence against people based on their religion, race, or ethnicity.
For more of it
Subscribe to the CNET Now newsletter to receive the most important stories of the day from our editors.
It was not immediately clear which specific posts or posts from Duke led to the ban on the account. The verified account for Duke, the founder and former great dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was empty on Thursday and was replaced by the message that the account was "permanently blocked".
Social media companies have recently been forced to expect hate speech on their platforms. Several large companies, including Unilever, Verizon, and Starbucks, have announced in the past few weeks that they are pausing advertising on Facebook and other social media websites because they fear that social media won't do enough to hate speech.
The ban follows a similar action taken by YouTube in June for violating its policies, which prohibit videos, videos that promote extremist views such as white dominance or reject events such as the Holocaust or Sandy Hook shooting.
Duke did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source link
