Twitter has banned right-wing provocateur James O\u2019Keefe, creator of political gotcha video producer Project Veritas, for violating its \u201cplatform manipulation and spam policy,\u201d suggesting he was operating multiple accounts in an unsanctioned way. O\u2019Keefe has already announced that he will sue the company for defamation.<\/p>\n
The ban, or \u201cpermanent suspension\u201d as Twitter calls it, occurred Thursday afternoon. A Twitter representative said the action followed the violation of rules prohibiting \u201coperating fake accounts\u201d and attempting to \u201cartificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts,\u201d as noted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This suggests O\u2019Keefe was banned for operating multiple accounts, outside the laissez-faire policy that lets people have a professional and a personal account, and that sort of thing.<\/p>\n Ssharp-eyed users noticed that O\u2019Keefe\u2019s last tweet unironically accused reporter Jesse Hicks of impersonation, including an image showing a partly redacted phone number supposedly belonging to Hicks. This too may have run afoul of Twitter\u2019s rules about posting personal information, but Twitter declined to comment on this when I asked. (Update<\/strong>: The image was in fact redacted, I thought it was done by the person who took the screenshot but the first digits were removed in the original tweet.)<\/p>\n Supporters of O\u2019Keefe say that the company removed his account as retribution for his most recent \u201cexpos\u00e9\u201d involving surreptitious recordings of a CNN employee admitting the news organization has a political bias. (The person he was talking to had, impersonating a nurse, matched with him on Tinder.)<\/p>\n For his part O\u2019Keefe said he would be suing Twitter for defamation over the allegation that he operated fake accounts. Chief Legal Officer Jered T. Ede told TechCrunch that \u201cJames O\u2019Keefe has only one account. He does not have fake accounts. Twitter\u2019s statement is simply false.\u201d<\/p>\n\n