The founder and editor of the right-wing Gateway Pundit website has been permanently banned from Twitter, leaving the liberal left “thrilled” and conservatives wondering who will be silenced next.
The @gatewaypundit Twitter handle belonging to Jim Hoft with more than 375,000 followers was abruptly banned on Saturday night. “The account was permanently suspended for repeated violations of our civic integrity policy,” a Twitter spokesperson confirmed in a brief statement.
Twitter did not clarify which violation was the last straw, as the account seemed to be not very active recently. The conservative publication itself has long faced criticism from the left for pushing “lies” and “conspiracies.”
Twitter's recently updated civic integrity policy introduces a system of strikes and increasingly severe punishments, among other things, for pushing “disputed claims that could undermine faith in the process itself, such as unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or certification of election results.”
“Oh s**t they got my boss,” journalist and Pundit contributor Cassandra Fairbanks tweeted. In response to ‘you’re next!’ threats, she quipped that from now on she will be careful not to wrongthink and will only tweet the opposite of what she believes.
Liberals celebrated the ban, many openly delighting, while others wondered what took Twitter so long.
Some sought to justify the move, not as the latest act of censorship of conservative voices, but rather a sincere desire by a private corporation to “limit the spread of dangerous disinformation.”
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!