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Earlier this year, controversial Breitbart News columnist Milo Yiannopoulos reported claims that the company’s management was subtly censoring “populist conservative … cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents” by subjecting them to “shadowbanning” so that most of their tweets did not show up in their followers’ Twitter feeds.
In July, Yiannopoulos himself was permanently banned from Twitter, after several suspensions, for allegedly inciting racist harassment against African-American comedienne and Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.
Many commentators, both conservative and liberal, saw this as a disturbing move to stifle unpopular speech, particularly since no specific instances of instigation were cited. However, Yiannopoulos may have crossed the line when, in the middle of troll attacks on Jones, he tweeted fake screenshots of two supposed racist tweets by her.
While Yiannopoulos is a notorious provocateur with a trollish history, Twitter’s hammer has been brought down on other notable right-of-center users.
Last month, Glenn Reynolds, the University of Tennessee law professor and Instapundit blogger, was suspended for tweeting a news story about anti-police brutality protesters stopping traffic on a bridge and surrounding vehicles with the comment, “Run them down.”