White nationalist says losing Twitter account was a “digital execution”

[MikeWB]

White nationalist says losing Twitter account was a "digital execution"
Company won't say why it finally felt some alt-right accounts crossed the line.

CYRUS FARIVAR - 11/16/2016, 1:34 PM

Late Tuesday evening, USA Today reported that Twitter had suspended several accounts associated with racist white nationalist users and groups, including the account of Richard B. Spencer.

Spencer is the president of an organization that describes itself as being "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States."

That group, the "National Policy Institute," also had its Twitter account suspended.

In a Tuesday video to supporters, Spencer said he was "alive physically," but he likened the suspensions to "digital execution squads all over the alt-right," and compared it to the "Night of Long Knives," a momentous event in Nazi history where Adolf Hitler purged much of his own leadership.


FURTHER READING
Twitter bots can reduce racist slurs—if people think the bots are white
Twitter, which did not respond to Ars' questions as to why these accounts were suspended now, just published a new feature that expands the service's "mute" feature.
As the company wrote in a Tuesday blog post:

We're enabling you to mute keywords, phrases, and even entire conversations you don't want to see notifications about, rolling out to everyone in the coming days. This is a feature we've heard many of you ask for, and we're going to keep listening to make it better and more comprehensive over time.
Our hateful conduct policy prohibits specific conduct that targets people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease.