Twitter Suspends White Nationalists Under New Guidelines

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Twitter started to enforce new guidelines on the social media platform on Monday, suspending several white nationalist accounts including a user who President Donald Trump retweeted in November.

Twitter announced the new rules regarding hateful content last month and began enforcing them Monday. They are designed to block accounts that use hate symbols, threaten violence and engage in sexual harassment.

“You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease,” the new guideline against hateful conduct reads. “We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.”

Twitter users can now report individual accounts that spread hate or other offensive material; before the new guidelines, users could only report other tweets that were offensive. Users who post symbols or speech that may be considered hateful will also have to mark it as "sensitive media" under the new guidelines. Other users will then see a warning before viewing the post.

The guidelines do not, however, specify what symbols or images will be banned from the site. Twitter would not comment about specific accounts that may be subject to a ban.

But on Monday, several white nationalist accounts went dark as the company began enforcing the new rules. The account of far-right group Britain First, which posts inflammatory videos that purport to show Muslims carrying out violence, was among the first to be banned.

Two leaders of the group, Jayda Fransen and Paul Golding, also had their accounts shut off. President Trump caused a stir in November when he retweeted a number of anti-Muslim posts from Fransen.

Other accounts that were suspended include American Renaissance, a white nationalist online magazine run by Jared Taylor, Brad Griffin, who blogs under the name Hunter Wallace on the website Occidental Dissent, and Michael Hill of the Traditionalist Workers Party.

But other white nationalists like Richard Spencer and David Duke remained on the platform, prompting questions about inconsistencies on who was being banned.

In a statement announcing the changes Monday, Twitter acknowledged they are working on how to best enforce the new guidelines.

“Today, we are starting to enforce these policies across Twitter. In our efforts to be more aggressive here, we may make some mistakes and are working on a robust appeals process,” the company wrote. “We’ll evaluate and iterate on these changes in the coming days and weeks, and will keep you posted on progress along the way.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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