Twitter confirmed, Friday, July 31, to have closed the account of the former head of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), David Duke, supporter of white supremacism, for posting hateful content on the social network.

According to a spokesperson for the platform, the account "has been permanently suspended for repeatedly violating Twitter's hateful conduct policy." Messages that led to this decision were not disclosed.

In its charter, Twitter states that it bans publications that incite violence against people "on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, caste, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, disability or any serious illness. "

His YouTube channel already deleted

Present on Twitter since September 2009, David Duke had just over 53,000 subscribers. A famous far-right public figure, he was the leader of the racist organization KKK during the 1970s before officially distancing himself from the movement at the end of that decade.

David Duke nevertheless remains a defender of the theory of the superiority of the white race, revisionist, and very regularly attacks the Jews.

The 70-year-old served as an MP in Louisiana between 1989 and 1992 and spent nearly a year and a half in prison in the early 2000s for tax evasion. He had declared himself in favor of Donald Trump, during the Republican presidential primary of 2016, a support that the billionaire had been reluctant to disavow before resolving to do so.

David Duke's YouTube channel was deleted at the end of June during a large operation against channels broadcasting supremacist and racist content.

Social networks are frequently accused of laxity by civil rights organizations and politicians regarding the moderation of posts promoting hatred or disinformation.

Facebook, which is the subject of the strongest criticisms, is under the blow of an unprecedented advertising boycott, followed by more than 1000 advertisers, to force it to better regulate this kind of messages.

Last week, Twitter deleted more than 7,000 accounts linked to the pro-Trump “QAnon” movement, which has been spreading conspiracy theories online.

With AFP

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