Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has been banned from Twitter for breaking the social media platform’s rules forbidding hate speech.
The company said that Duke’s account “has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct”.
It did not specify what exactly Duke posted that triggered the ban, but its policy on hateful conduct prohibits promoting violence or threatening attacks against people based on religious affiliation, race and ethnic origin.
Twitter said the ban was in line with its recently updated policy aimed at cutting down on harmful links.
Under the new rules, the company may suspend accounts dedicated to sharing hateful content or that try to get around its blocks on sharing links to the material.
Duke was the leader of the white supremacist KKK from 1974 to 1978.
In a series of tweets late on 8th July Duke wrote that “Trump & Tucker is the only way to stop the commie Bolsheviks! It is the only path to beat them! #TrumpTucker2020”
He also endorsed Mr Trump for president in 2016. When attending the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, he told an interviewer that the day’s march was organised as a celebration of what the Trump intended to do for the US.
“We’re going to take our country back,” he said. “We’re going to fulfil the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back and that’s what we gotta do.”
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