Twitter blocks Britain First leaders over hate speech
Far-right group bosses banned from social media site under new user policy
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Twitter has blocked leaders of the far-right group Britain First for posting three anti-Muslim videos that were later shared by Donald Trump.
Britain First leader Paul Godding and his deputy, Jayda Fransen, were among several senior figures in the group whose accounts were suspended on Monday following a change in the social media site’s hate speech policy, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Twitter had come under fire for not responding to the anti-Muslim videos, posted by Fransen in November and then retweeted by the US president.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Yesterday the social network announced in a blogpost that “hateful imagery will now be considered sensitive media under our media policy”.
It adds: “We consider hateful imagery to be logos, symbols, or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.”
However, while Trump shared content now deemed to be in breach of the site’s user policy, Twitter will not “take action against government officials”, according to Bloomberg.
The bans mean it is no longer possible to view the accounts of Golding and Fransen, nor any content they have posted or shared, says BBC News. The posts shared by Trump no longer appear on his Twitter feed, either.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Hateful imagery, such as the Nazi swastika, can still be posted, the news site says, but it will be hidden behind a “sensitive media” banner that users can choose to manually remove.
-
6 exquisite homes with vast acreageFeature Featuring an off-the-grid contemporary home in New Mexico and lakefront farmhouse in Massachusetts
-
Film reviews: ‘Wuthering Heights,’ ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,’ and ‘Sirat’Feature An inconvenient love torments a would-be couple, a gonzo time traveler seeks to save humanity from AI, and a father’s desperate search goes deeply sideways
-
Political cartoons for February 16Cartoons Monday’s political cartoons include President's Day, a valentine from the Epstein files, and more
-
Are Big Tech firms the new tobacco companies?Today’s Big Question A trial will determine whether Meta and YouTube designed addictive products
-
Is social media over?Today’s Big Question We may look back on 2025 as the moment social media jumped the shark
-
Australia’s teen social media ban takes effectSpeed Read Kids under age 16 are now barred from platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Reddit
-
X update unveils foreign MAGA boostersSpeed Read The accounts were located in Russia and Nigeria, among other countries
-
Trump allies reportedly poised to buy TikTokSpeed Read Under the deal, U.S. companies would own about 80% of the company
-
What an all-bot social network tells us about social mediaUnder The Radar The experiment's findings 'didn't speak well of us'
-
Broken brains: The social price of digital lifeFeature A new study shows that smartphones and streaming services may be fueling a sharp decline in responsibility and reliability in adults
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages