A prominent white supremacist website is encouraging supporters to create fake accounts in an effort to push back against Twitter for suspending the accounts of several high-profile, right-wing users last month.
In a post on the alt-right Daily Stormer website, founder Andrew Anglin encouraged Twitter users this month to create "fake black person accounts" on the social networking site to create "the biggest trollstorm Twitter has ever seen" and to delegitimize the Black Lives Matter movement.
"The primary goal is revenge on Twitter for having launched this attack on free speech, and specifically on the alt-right … by creating a massive spectacle and putting stress on their systems," Anglin wrote. "We wish to create a state of chaos on Twitter, among the black Twitter population, by sowing distrust and suspicion, causing blacks to panic."
The post was made as Twitter continues to target abuse and hate speech on the social network. Last month, the company introduced tools to shield users from hateful accounts, keywords and phrases, and updated its "hateful conduct policy."
"The amount of abuse, bullying, and harassment we've seen across the Internet has risen sharply over the past few years," the company said in its announcement of the new features. "These behaviors inhibit people from participating on Twitter, or anywhere. ... 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."
Twitter banned several accounts linked to the alt-right movement for violating the hateful conduct policy, including those of Richard Spencer, founder of the white supremacist National Policy Institute and considered to be the founder of the alt-right movement, notorious alt-right Twitter personality Ricky Vaughn and former chief technology officer of Business Insider Pax Dickinson, NPR reported.
In a YouTube video, Spencer denied any wrongdoing and called the decision to delete the accounts "corporate Stalinism."
"I am alive physically but digitally speaking there has been execution squads across the alt-right," he said, comparing the situation to the Night of the Long Knives, a reference to a 1934 purge in Nazi Germany. "I was using Twitter just like I always use Twitter, to give people some updates and maybe comment on a news story here and there."
Black Twitter users have made the equivalent of an internet scoff at the white supremacist's plans. The Daily Stormer article led Twitter user @iHateDanae to create the hashtag #BlackTwitterVerficationQuestions to poke fun at the proposed plan.
"I saw it as a humorous way of taking ownership of the Twitter experience we have created," she told The Huffington Post. "(It was) really rewarding to bring everyone together in a humorous way, considering how tough this year has been on most of us."
About the Author
