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Twitter Gives White Nationalist His Twitter Account Back

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Eric Lieberman Managing Editor
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Twitter restored the account of Richard Spencer, president of the white nationalist organization the National Policy Institute (NPI), Saturday.

Spencer’s account was originally suspended in mid-November during what seemed to be a mass purge of prominent alt-right social media figures.

“This is corporate Stalinism,” Spencer told The Daily Caller News Foundation at the time. “Twitter is trying to airbrush the Alt Right out of existence. They’re clearly afraid. They will fail!”

Twitter claims that Spencer was banned due to a technicality. (RELATED: Twitter Doesn’t Rule Out Banning Trump If He Gets Too Unruly)

“As referenced in our November 18, 2016 communication, creating serial and/or multiple accounts with overlapping use is a violation of the Twitter Rules,” the social media company said in an email to Spencer, according to BuzzFeed News.

“Twitter Rules also prohibit hateful conduct, harassment, and violent threats. We will take action on accounts that violate these policies,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, making sure to reiterate its censorship protocol.

Spencer has become quite infamous over recent months due to his divisive, xenophobic and even vitriolic rhetoric. Most notably, Spencer spoke at a conference in Washington, D.C., in November where several supporters were seen giving the Nazi salute.

Now that his personal account is reinstated, Spencer said he will work on trying to get NPI’s official social media platform back as well.

Twitter once considered itself a place for the completely free exchange of information.

“Generally, we remain neutral as to the content because our general council [sic] and CEO like to say that we are the free speech wing of the free speech party,” general manager of Twitter in the U.K., Tony Wang, said in 2012 while describing the social media platform. (RELATED: Twitter Suspends Its CEO At Same Time As Alt-Right Purge)

But now the company seems determined to cleanse itself of content that it may disagree with or regard as reprehensible.

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