Conservatives and the Alt Right Claim a Twitter Purge Is Occurring Just As the Company Is Being Sued

An infamous white nationalist filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Twitter for removing his account — a legal complaint coincidentally registered at the same time a number of other people either with similar beliefs or mere conservatives had their accounts removed or diminished.

Jared Taylor, founder and editor of the white supremacist site American Renaissance, along with New Century Foundation, the organization in charge of publishing the digital magazine, are suing because they claim Twitter is discriminating against him by removing his account.

The suspension, the plaintiffs purport, isn’t due to Taylor violating any particular company policies, but rather because they disagree with his viewpoints. Thus, Twitter is violating California law, which protects free speech in public spaces, the lawsuit alleges, while also violating its own claims of being a neutral platform. Taylor’s attorneys argue that Twitter has effectively become a public forum, and California has ruled before that private entities can be counted as such, even if it hasn’t ever been applied specifically to the internet.

Twitter once went out of its way to ensure a free speech ethos was a fundamental part of their platform, even if the speech was unpopular. But, in November, a policy change stated that violent and hateful speech or content, an arguably ambiguous classification, would no longer be allowed and could result in account suspension.

Taylor asserts that he hasn’t advocated for violence and hasn’t associated with groups that do so.

Several others who affirm their innocence — some of which who have beliefs and content way less controversial than Taylor’s — claim that their accounts overnight have lost thousands of followers, been locked, or in some way restricted, if not completely removed. {snip}

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The Communications Decency Act enacted in 1996 is meant to “encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet,” Peters cited to The DCNF. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy nonprofit, calls it “the most important law protecting internet speech.”

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Twitter apparently has exceptions to its rules, sparing President Donald Trump, but not white nationalists, affiliates of the so-called alt right and the ilk, nor just ardent conservatives.

{snip}

White supremacists like Taylor, of course, often espouse the supremacy of their race, and in doing so can cross the line of what is merely racist pontification into what could conceivably be regarded as indirect or direct threats.

{snip}

Twitter did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment pertaining to Taylor’s lawsuit and the reported “purge” in time of publication.

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An infamous white nationalist filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Twitter for removing his account — a legal complaint coincidentally registered at the same time a number of other people either with similar beliefs or mere conservatives had their accounts removed or diminished.

Jared Taylor, founder and editor of the white supremacist site American Renaissance, along with New Century Foundation, the organization in charge of publishing the digital magazine, are suing because they claim Twitter is discriminating against him by removing his account.

The suspension, the plaintiffs purport, isn’t due to Taylor violating any particular company policies, but rather because they disagree with his viewpoints. Thus, Twitter is violating California law, which protects free speech in public spaces, the lawsuit alleges, while also violating its own claims of being a neutral platform. Taylor’s attorneys argue that Twitter has effectively become a public forum, and California has ruled before that private entities can be counted as such, even if it hasn’t ever been applied specifically to the internet.

Twitter once went out of its way to ensure a free speech ethos was a fundamental part of their platform, even if the speech was unpopular. But, in November, a policy change stated that violent and hateful speech or content, an arguably ambiguous classification, would no longer be allowed and could result in account suspension.

Taylor asserts that he hasn’t advocated for violence and hasn’t associated with groups that do so.

Several others who affirm their innocence — some of which who have beliefs and content way less controversial than Taylor’s — claim that their accounts overnight have lost thousands of followers, been locked, or in some way restricted, if not completely removed. {snip}

{snip}

The Communications Decency Act enacted in 1996 is meant to “encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet,” Peters cited to The DCNF. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy nonprofit, calls it “the most important law protecting internet speech.”

{snip}

Twitter apparently has exceptions to its rules, sparing President Donald Trump, but not white nationalists, affiliates of the so-called alt right and the ilk, nor just ardent conservatives.

{snip}

White supremacists like Taylor, of course, often espouse the supremacy of their race, and in doing so can cross the line of what is merely racist pontification into what could conceivably be regarded as indirect or direct threats.

{snip}

Twitter did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment pertaining to Taylor’s lawsuit and the reported “purge” in time of publication.

[Editor’s Note: To find out more about our lawsuit, or to contribute to our legal fund, click here.]