Twitter suspensions

Twitter may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. There have been concerted campaigns to shut down terrorist organizations and accounts that promote terrorist action, such as those promoting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the mid-2010s. Suspensions of high-profile individuals from Twitter are unusual; they often attract media attention when they occur.

Policy

Users who are permanently suspended from Twitter, based on alleged violations of Twitter's terms of service, are not told which of their tweets were the cause. They are told only that their accounts will not be restored, and they are told which of Twitter's rules the company claims were violated. In addition to community guideline policy decisions, the Twitter DMCA-detection system and spam-detection system are sometimes manipulated or abused by groups of users attempting to force a user's suspension.

In January 2019, Twitter formally provided information on instances where governments have attempted to utilize Twitter for "foreign information operations".

Some commentators, such as technology entrepreneur Declan McCullagh and law professor Glenn Reynolds, have criticized Twitter's suspension and ban policies as overreaches of power.

Twitter frequently responds to media enquiries about suspended accounts with "We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons."

History

Between 2014 and 2016, Twitter suspensions were frequently linked to ISIS/ISIL-related accounts. A "Twitter suspension campaign" began in earnest in 2015, and on one day, 4 April 2015, some 10,000 accounts were suspended. Twitter repeatedly shut down accounts that spread ISIS material, but new ones popped up quickly and were advertised with their old Twitter handle; Twitter in return blocked those in what was called an ongoing game of Whac-A-Mole. By August 2014, Twitter had suspended a dozen official ISIS accounts, and between September and December 2014 it suspended at least 1000 accounts promoting ISIS. Twitter said that between mid-2015 and February 2016 it had suspended 125,000 accounts associated with ISIS and related organizations, and by August 2016 had suspended some 360,000 accounts for being associated with terrorism (not all these were ISIS-related).

In January 2016, Twitter was sued by the widow of an American man killed in the 2015 Amman shooting attack, claiming that allowing ISIL to continually use the platform, including direct messages in particular, constituted the provision of material support to a terrorist organization. Twitter disputed the claim. The lawsuit was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, upholding the Section 230 safe harbor, which dictates that the operators of an interactive computer service are not liable for the content published by its users. The lawsuit was revised in August 2016, providing comparisons to other telecommunications devices.

Twitter suspended multiple parody accounts that satirized Russian politics in May 2016, sparking protests and raising questions about where the company stands on freedom of speech. Following public outcry, Twitter restored the accounts the next day without explaining why the accounts had been suspended. The same day, Twitter, along with Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, jointly agreed to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours. In August 2016, Twitter stated that it had banned 235,000 accounts over the past six months, bringing the overall number of suspended accounts to 360,000 accounts in the past year, for violating policies banning use of the platform to promote extremism.

On 10 May 2019, Twitter announced that they suspended 166,513 accounts for promoting terrorism in the July–December 2018 period, stating there was a steady decrease in terrorist groups trying to use the platform owing to its "zero-tolerance policy enforcement". According to Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, there was a reduction of 19% terror related tweets from the previous reporting period (January–June 2018).

In September 2017, Twitter responded to calls to suspend US President Donald Trump's account, clarifying that they will not do so as they consider his tweets to be "newsworthy".

In October 2017, Twitter posted a calendar of upcoming changes related to enforcement. Among other things, Twitter promised to provide "a better experience for suspension appeals," including a detailed description to the user of how a suspended account violated the rules.

In November 2017, Twitter gave a deadline of 18 December to comply with their new policy, adding: "You also may not affiliate with organizations that—whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform—use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes." On 18 December, the accounts of several high-profile organizations were suspended.

Incidents

Rose McGowan

In October 2017, actress Rose McGowan said that Twitter had suspended her account for 12 hours after she repeatedly tweeted about former film studio executive Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct toward her and others. Twitter explained that McGowan's account had violated its privacy policy because one of her tweets included a private phone number. According to The New York Times, "Many Twitter users expressed outrage over Ms. McGowan's account being locked". After the tweet was removed, her account was unlocked several hours before the 12-hour ban was set to expire. A Twitter representative stated, "We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future." Later that day, software engineer Kelly Ellis, using the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter, urged women to shun Twitter for 24 hours, beginning at midnight, in solidarity with McGowan and with "all the victims of hate and harassment Twitter fails to support". Several activists, celebrities, and journalists joined the boycott. Others criticized the level of organization and the fact that it was only 24 hours.

2018 fake followers purge

On 11 July 2018, The New York Times newspaper reported that Twitter would start deleting fake follower accounts to increase the authenticity of the platform.

The issue of fake follower accounts was highlighted in 2016 when trolls, and interference using both human-operated and bot accounts in the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, leveraged the reach of Twitter and initiated voter deception.

Several celebrities and public figures lost substantial numbers of followers from their Twitter accounts before and after the purge(s). These included Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres, Jack Dorsey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ari Fleischer, Pope Francis, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Kathy Ireland, Paul Kagame, Ashton Kutcher, The New York Times, Shaquille O'Neal, Barack Obama, Katy Perry, Queen Rania of Jordan, Rihanna, Cristiano Ronaldo, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Twitter, Variety magazine, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, and YouTube.

US President Donald Trump said that social networks such as Twitter were "totally discriminating" against Republican Party and conservative users. Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey clarified that the reduction in the followers count was part of the platform's efforts to cut down on spamming and bot accounts. Dorsey's own account lost about 230,000 followers in the purge.

On 27 July 2018, Twitter's stock went down by 20.5% (equivalent to $6 billion), with one market analyst stating that it may go down even lower. The user base declined to 325 million, down from 326 million.

List of notable suspensions

2010–2015

Individual/account	Description	Date	Duration	Reason for suspension
Operation Payback (@Anon_Operation)	Anonymous hacktivist campaign in support of online piracy and WikiLeaks	8 December 2010	Permanent	Co-ordinating denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, Mastercard and Visa.
Courtney Love (@CourtneyLoveUK)	American musician and actress	January 2011	Permanent (main account)	Suspended days after fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir filed a defamation suit against Love over tweets made on 17 March 2009. It was the first high-profile defamation trial over a celebrity's comments on Twitter. Love now uses a different account (@Courtney).
Anders Behring Breivik (@AndersBBreivik)	Norwegian far-right terrorist and perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks	July 2011	Permanent	After Breivik was arrested, his account was hacked by Anonymous, who said they would delete it. It was later suspended.
Guy Adams (@guyadams)	British journalist for The Independent	30–31 July 2012	Temporary	Publishing the company email address of NBC executive Gary Zenkel during the 2012 Summer Olympics, for which NBC and Twitter were in a partnership. Twitter initially encouraged NBC to file a complaint, then later apologized and unsuspended Adams after NBC withdrew its complaint.
Anonymous (@YourAnonNews)	Hacktivist collective	19 December 2012	Temporary	Publishing personal information belonging to Westboro Baptist Church lawyer and member Shirley Phelps-Roper.
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades	Military wing of Hamas	11 January 2014	Permanent	Unspecified but likely connected to Hamas's classification in the US and elsewhere as a terrorist organisation. The organisation continued to create new accounts, which were later also suspended. Further purges of Hamas accounts took place in 2016 and 2019.
Phil Mason (@thunderf00t)	British atheist and anti-feminist vlogger	September 2014	Temporary	Violating Twitter's abusive behaviour policy by sharing content targeting feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian during the Gamergate controversy.
Godless Spellchecker (@GSpellchecker)	English atheist blogger and podcaster	3–5 January 2015	Temporary	Alleged "targeted abuse or harassment". He had been repeatedly suspended in the past.
Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson, @GotNewsDotCom and @CitizenTrolling)	Alt-right blogger	24 May 2015	Permanent	Violating Twitter's rules "around participating in targeted abuse" by tweeting the day before about "taking out" civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson, which Mckesson perceived as "a serious threat". Temporarily suspended three times prior.
Jalbib Al-Jazrawi	ISIL member	July 2015	Permanent	Making a death threat against Nasser Al Qasabi.
George Zimmerman	American man known for the shooting of Trayvon Martin	December 2015	Permanent	Posting tweets containing revenge porn.

2016

Individual/account	Description	Date	Duration	Reason for suspension
Iyad El-Baghdadi	Arab Spring activist	January 2016	Temporary	Mistaken for ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by Twitter staff.
Robert Stacy McCain	Anti-feminist writer	February 2016	Permanent	Participating in targeted abuse.
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades	Military wing of Hamas	March 2016	Permanent	Twitter attempted to remove all official accounts of the terrorist organisation, but the organisation swiftly opened new accounts. More accounts were suspended in 2019.
Abu Obeida	Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson	15 April 2016
Azealia Banks (@AZEALIABANKS)	American rapper	May 2016	Permanent	Making racist and homophobic posts towards singer Zayn Malik.
Milo Yiannopoulos	British polemicist and political commentator	July 2016	Permanent	Insulting Leslie Jones coinciding with a racist harassment campaign.
Guccifer 2.0	Hacking group or individual	August 2016	Temporary	Posting information illegally hacked from the Democratic National Committee.
PewDiePie	YouTuber	September 2016	Temporary	Pretending to be a member of ISIL.
Various "alt-right" accounts		November 2016	Permanent	Including accounts of National Policy Institute, Radix Journal, Ricky Vaughn, John Rivers, and others; banned for violating Twitter's policy prohibiting users from "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others".
Tila Tequila	Social media personality	November 2016	Permanent	Making neo-Nazi posts, including a photo of herself and other attendees rendering a Nazi salute at an event of the white nationalist National Policy Institute.
Jack Dorsey	Twitter co-founder and CEO	November 2016	Temporary	After restoring his account, Dorsey tweeted the suspension was due to an "internal mistake".
Richard Spencer	Alt-right leader	November–December 2016	Temporary	Allegedly for using multiple overlapping accounts.
John Rivello (@jew_goldstein)	Maryland Trump supporter	December 2016	Permanent	Sending an epileptogenic GIF to journalist with epilepsy Kurt Eichenwald.

2017

Individual/account	Description	Date	Duration	Reason for suspension
Martin Shkreli	Investor	January 2017	Permanent	Suspended for sexual harassment of journalist Lauren Duca.
Craig R. Brittain	Republican US Senate candidate in Arizona, former operator of "revenge porn" website	February 2017	Permanent	Suspended after suggesting that the survivors of the Parkland, Florida Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, had been paid by gun control groups. Brittain sued Twitter for banning his accounts. The suit was dismissed as frivolous.
Victoria Fierce	Developer	February 2017	Temporary	Swearing at US Vice President Mike Pence.
Mocha Uson	Entertainer and Rodrigo Duterte supporter	March 2017	Temporary	Unknown.
Abhijeet Bhattacharya	Singer	May 2017	Temporary	Harassing women including activist Shehla Rashid.
Al Jazeera Arabic	News service	June 2017	Temporary	Unknown.
Daniel Sieradski	American writer and activist	8 June 2017	Permanent	Unknown, Sieradski believes he was suspended for threatening violence against Baked Alaska, or for arguing with Courtney Love about Linda Sarsour.
Anthony Cumia	American radio personality and broadcaster	11 June 2017	Permanent	Account permanently suspended for alleged harassment involving transsexual men's rights activist Katie Rife. Since then, Cumia has activated several new accounts which were subsequently permanently suspended as well in 2018 and 2019.
Ken 'Popehat' White'	Legal blogger	August 2017	Temporary	Posting personal information in screen shots of threats received.
Joseph Cox	Journalist for The Daily Beast	August 2017	Temporary	Targeted by bots after writing story about suspicious activity by pro-Kremlin bots.
@nemuismywife	Japanese man	August 2017	Uses new account	Account permanently suspended for making a death threat towards a dead mosquito. The man started a new account.
Alex Boivin	Twitter user	August 2017	Temporary	Suspended for sexual harassment of the cereal mascot Tony the Tiger.
Elizabeth Johnston	Christian blogger	August 2017	Temporary	Criticizing article of Teen Vogue which promoted anal sex amongst teenagers.
@themoodforluv	American woman	September 2017	Permanent	Harassment of singer Taylor Swift.
Kamaal Rashid Khan	Actor and film critic	October 2017	Uses new account	After the ban, Khan announced his intention to take legal action against Twitter; he later created a new account.
Rose McGowan	Activist and actress	October 2017	Temporary	Account temporarily suspended for posting a private phone number.
Roger Stone	Political consultant	October 2017	Permanent	Banned for harassment of CNN journalists. Stone later threatened legal action against Twitter.
Donald Trump	US President	November 2017	Temporary	Account briefly deactivated by a rogue Twitter employee on their last workday.
"Jenna Abrams"	Alt-right blogger	November 2017	Permanent	Unmasked as a fictitious person operated by a Russian troll factory.
Robert Delaware	American man	November 2017	Temporary	Mistaken for a Russian troll account.
2,752 Russian troll accounts		November 2017	Permanent	Twitter's internal investigation linked the accounts to Russia's Internet Research Agency.
Baked Alaska	Alt-right activist	November 2017	Permanent	Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.
Talib Kweli	Musician	November 2017	Temporary	Account locked after posting business address of online harasser who posted threats and racist slurs; restored after he deleted the tweet. The account of the harasser, extremist attorney Jason Lee Van Dyke, was suspended.
Pakistan Defence Forum	Forum for discussing Pakistan's armed forces	November 2017	Unknown	Suspended for posting doctored photo and fake news.
Wael Abbas	Egyptian journalist, blogger, and human rights activist	December 2017	Unknown	Unknown.
Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen	Leader and deputy leader of fascist group Britain First	18 December 2017	Permanent	Contravention of new rule for against people 'that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes'. The organisation had posted videos with false and misleading captions attributing violence to Muslims, which were re-tweeted by Donald Trump.
American Nazi Party	American Nazis	18 December 2017	Permanent	Affiliation with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes.
Jared Taylor and American Renaissance Michael Hill and League of the South Traditionalist Worker Party	American white nationalists	18 December 2017	Permanent	Affiliation with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes.
Nordic Resistance Movement	Nordic white nationalists	December 2017	Permanent	Affiliation with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes.
James Allsup	Far-right political commentator	December 2017	Unknown	Unknown.
Tyler Barriss (@SWAuTistic)	Suspect in deadly 2017 Wichita swatting incident	December 2017	Unknown	Account suspended after Los Angeles police arrested Barriss as the suspected "swatter" who claimed responsibility for placing a fake 911 call that led an officer to kill an innocent man in Wichita, Kansas.
fuck every word (@fuckeveryword)	Twitter bot	20 December 2017	Permanent	Tweeting "fuck niggers".

2018

Individual/account	Description	Date	Duration	Reason for suspension
David Clarke	Former sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin	2 January 2018	Temporary	Suspended for three posts that appeared to encourage violence against the media, including one tweet stating "Punch them in the nose & MAKE THEM TASTE THEIR OWN BLOOD." Suspension lifted after Clarke deleted the posts.
Golden Dawn	Greek ultranationalist party	5 January 2018	Permanent	Broadening of hateful conduct policy on encompass incitement to violence.
Paul Nehlen	Congressional candidate challenging Speaker Paul Ryan in Republican primary	13 February 2018	Permanent	Banned after posting racist tweet targeting Meghan Markle.
Tommy Robinson	British nationalist	28 March 2018	Permanent	Hateful conduct.
Owen Benjamin	Comedian	5 April 2018	Permanent	Offensive tweets directed at David Hogg.
Sabo	Street artist	13 April 2018	Permanent	Unknown.
Mike Enoch	White nationalist	16 April 2018	Permanent	Hateful conduct.
Bezalel Smotrich	Israeli politician and Knesset member	23 April 2018	Temporary	Suspended for 12 hours for "offensive behavior" after tweeting, regarding Ahed Tamimi, a 17-year-old Palestinian serving an eight-month jail sentence for a videotaped assault of an Israeli soldier: "In my opinion, she should have gotten a bullet, at least in the kneecap."
Splinter News and other users	News site	20 June 2018	Temporary	Linking to their story featuring and posting Stephen Miller's cell phone number.
@EricHartleyFrnd	Account used by Jarrod Ramos	28 June 2018	Permanent	Jarrod Ramos was arrested after he shot and killed five employees at The Capital during the mass shooting.
"Darren Mills"	Russian-linked account	4 July 2018	Permanent	Unmasked as a fictitious person operated by a Russian troll factory.
70 million automated, troll, and fake accounts		6 July 2018	Permanent	Part of a crackdown on malicious activity.
DCLeaks Guccifer 2.0	Russian-linked accounts	14 July 2018	Permanent	Connected to a network of accounts previously suspended for operating in violation of Twitter's rules.
Candace Owens	American conservative activist	5 August 2018	Temporary	Banned in error after tweeting the content of several Sarah Jeong's controversial tweets about white people, and changing races and religions mentioned in the tweets.
Peter van Buren	Former United States Foreign Service employee and writer	5 August 2018	Permanent	Banned for harassing Jonathan M. Katz in posts.
Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys	Neo-fascist organization and its founder	11 August 2018	Permanent	Violating policy on "violent extremist groups".
Talbert W. Swan II	American prelate of the Church of God in Christ	22 August 2018	Permanent; later reinstated	Hateful conduct. Possibly for calling Candace Owens a "coon". Swan's account was reinstated on 4 September 2018, which he attributed to thousands of his followers calling for Twitter to lift the suspension.
Alex Jones and InfoWars	Conspiracy website and its founder	6 September 2018	Permanent	First suspended for a week on 14 August for violating policy on "inciting violence" and later banned on 6 September for violating policy on "abusive behaviour".
Kris Paronto	Former US Army Ranger	10 September 2018	Temporary	Using the word retard and the hashtags #YouAreAnIdiot and #NeverGoFullRetard.
James Woods	Actor	20 September 2018	Temporary	Posting hoax political meme on 20 July 2018, specifically a fake message, supposedly from Democrats, that urged men not to vote in the midterm elections). Woods received an email from Twitter stating that the tweet had "the potential to be misleading in a way that could impact an election". Woods refused to delete the tweet himself. He was allowed to return in October 2018.
@CongressEdits	Twitter bot	3 October 2018	Permanent	Automatically rebroadcasting Wikipedia edits that doxed members of Congress.
Dozens of Occupy movement activists		11 October 2018	Permanent	No explanation from Twitter.
@InfowarsArmy @InfowarsCrew @InfowarsInsider @InfowarsMag @InfowarsPapers @InfowarsReports @InfowarsShop @Infowars_EU @PrisonPlanetTV @RealInfoStore @RealNewsX2 @TheNewsWars @WarRoomMemes @WarRoomShow and 4 other accounts	Accounts affiliated with Alex Jones and InfoWars	22 October 2018	Permanent	Permanently banned for ties with Alex Jones and InfoWars after "numerous violations and warnings".
@hardrock2016 @hardrockintlet	Accounts used by Cesar Sayoc	26 October 2018	Permanent	After the mail bombing attempts against Donald Trump critics and Democratic Party politicians, Sayoc's profiles were found to have posted far-right political conspiracy theories, graphic images and specific threats.
Smash Racism D.C.	Antifa group from Washington, D.C.	7 November 2018	Permanent	Posting the home addresses of Tucker Carlson along with other family members following a protest outside Carlson's home.
Meghan Murphy	Journalist	15 November 2018	Permanent	Banned for "hateful conduct" following a heated exchange which involved misgendering a transgender woman.
Laura Loomer	Political activist, conspiracy theorist, and Internet personality	22 November 2018	Permanent	Hateful conduct, suspended for a tweet attacking Ilhan Omar by accusing her of being "pro-Sharia" and "pro-FGM".
Jesse Kelly	Conservative talk radio host and former Republican congressional candidate	25 November 2018	Permanent; later reinstated	Unknown. Reinstated after media exposure, including an appearance with Tucker Carlson on Fox News.
@putinRF_eng	Imposter	26 November 2018	Permanent	Impersonating Russian president Vladimir Putin after a complaint to Twitter from Russian officials.
Amos Yee	Blogger	10 December 2018	Permanent	Permanently banned for supporting pedophilia.
Andile Mngxitama	Leader of the Black First Land First	17 December 2018	Temporary	Banned for a minimum of seven days after Mngxitama made threats to kill 5 White South Africans for every taxi driver killed in response to comments made by businessman Johann Rupert.

2019

Individual/account	Description	Date	Duration	Reason for suspension
Stephanie Sargnagel	Austrian author and artist	January 2019	Permanent; later reinstated	Suspended for posting tweet that translates to: 'Austria, you stupid son of a bitch, I am going to kill you'.
Jacob Wohl	American conspiracy theorist, fraudster and hoaxer	February 2019	Permanent	Creating and operating fake accounts after boasting he intended to manipulate the 2020 United States presidential election results in a USA Today interview.
Brenton Tarrant	Perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings	15 March 2019	Permanent	Posting pictures of the guns he later used in the attacks.
James Woods	Actor	April 2019	Temporary	Tweeting, "If you try to kill the King, you best not miss. #HangThemAll".
@TRobinsonMEP and @CarlUKIP	UKIP accounts of Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin	26 April 2019	Permanent	Violating Twitter's terms of service.
Correo del Orinoco Diario VEA	Pro-Maduro Venezuelan newspapers	1 May 2019	Unknown	Unspecified; occurred during the 2019 Venezuela uprising.
David Horowitz	Conservative activist & author	7 May 2019	Temporary	Unknown.
Min Aung Hlaing	Commander-in-Chief of Tatmadaw	16 May 2019	Permanent	Spreading propaganda against Rohingya people.
Nebojša Krstić	Serbian pundit aligned with the Serbian Progressive Party	17 May 2019	Permanent	Harassment of Vreme journalist Jovana Gligorijević.
Chiitan	Mascot of the town of Susaki, Japan	17 May 2019	Uses new account	Unknown.
Ed Krassenstein and Brian Krassenstein	Resistance Twitter activists	23 May 2019	Permanent	Operating fake accounts.
Eoin Lenihan	Researcher and educator	29 May 2019	Permanent	Banned from Twitter for abusing multiple accounts for abusive purposes.
@TheTweetOfGod	Account operated by David Javerbaum	11 June 2019	Temporary	Tweeting, "If gay people are a mistake, they're a mistake I've made hundreds of millions of times, which proves I'm incompetent and shouldn't be relied upon for anything."
Luke Taylor	Internet troll	8 July 2019	Permanent	Sustained harassment of the Planters snack food mascot, Mr. Peanut.
Louis Farrakhan	Leader of The Nation of Islam	9 July 2019	Unknown	Banned for using "language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion".
Lindsay Shepherd	Free-speech activist	16 July 2019	Permanent; later reinstated	Banned for "hateful conduct" following a heated exchange with a transgender woman and LGBTQ advocate from Vancouver.
Patrick Wood Crusius and Connor Stephen Betts	Perpetrators of the 2019 El Paso shooting and the 2019 Dayton shooting	4 August 2019	Permanent
Team Mitch (@Team_Mitch)	Political campaign for US senator Mitch McConnell	7–9 August 2019	Temporary	Posting a video that included violent threats against McConnell.
200,000 Chinese accounts		19 August 2019	Permanent	Believed the accounts were part of a Chinese government influence campaign targeting the protest movement in Hong Kong.
Pauline Hanson	Australian senator and leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation	22 August 2019	Temporary	Suspended for "violating rules against abuse and harassment" by posting video advocating the use of violence against protesters
Raúl Castro Mariela Castro Mesa Redonda Granma Digital Radio Rebelde	Cuban government-affiliated accounts	12 September 2019	Unknown	Unspecified breach of rules.
DotDev.ae	Operator of bot accounts in the United Arab Emirates	20 September 2019	Permanent	Spreading information about Qatar and the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.
Saud al-Qahtani	Former media consultant to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman	20 September 2019	Permanent	Banned for violating the company's "platform manipulation" policies.
Quds News Network	Palestinian media outlet	1 November 2019	Unknown	Shedding light on the practices of the Israeli occupation.
Hamas and Hezbollah–affiliated accounts, including Al-Manar and Quds News Network		1 November 2019	Permanent	Part of Twitter's crack down on "illegal terrorist organizations and violent extremist groups", conducted after reviewing accounts highlighted by US representatives Josh Gottheimer, Tom Reed, Max Rose, and Brian Fitzpatrick, who accused Twitter of violating the law by doing business with "foreign terrorist organizations". Twitter reversed its previous decision to allow a platform for non-military arms of terrorist organizations.
Will Sloan	Canadian film critic and podcaster	21 November 2019	Temporary	Suspended for tweets about the fictional character Baby Yoda.
Danielle Stella	Republican candidate potentially challenging US Rep. Ilhan Omar in the 2020 election	27 November 2019	Permanent	Repeated rule violations; one tweet read, "If it is proven @IlhanMN [Ilhan Omar] passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged".
Pete Hegseth	Fox News contributor	8 December 2019	Temporary	Banned for posting an anti-American manifesto that was written from Mohammed Alshamrani, the Saudi Arabian military cadet who shot and killed three people and injured 12 when he opened fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola on 6 December 2019.
88,000 Saudi-linked accounts		20 December 2019	Permanent	State-backed information operations originating in Saudi Arabia that "violated platform manipulation policies".

2020

Individual/account	Description	Date	Duration	Reason for suspension
Dozen accounts associated with Venezuela's government and military		8 January 2020	Unknown	Unspecified.
@loccohontas	Alleged celebrity burner account	22 January 2020	Temporary	Accused of leaking private information regarding the 24 May 2000 shooting of rapper 50 Cent. Account was reinstated less than 24 hours later after an outcry from thousands of users. Twitter responded saying the suspension was an error and in "bad faith".
Zero Hedge	Libertarian, right-wing financial blog	31 January 2020	Temporary	Publishing an article falsely accusing a Wuhan Institute of Virology doctor of releasing COVID-19 as a biological weapon and doxxing said doctor. The account was reinstated in June 2020 with Twitter saying the suspension was in error.
@BabyNutBaby @BabyNutMemes @BabyNutLOL	Meme accounts tied to Planters	3 February 2020	Permanent	Astroturfing in support of the "Baby Nut" campaign. The main Mr. Peanut (@MrPeanut) account was not suspended.
70 pro–Michael Bloomberg accounts		21 February 2020	Permanent	Posting identical messages, which Twitter said amounted to spam and "platform manipulation".
Zuby	Rapper	27 February 2020	Temporary	Writing "ok dude" to an account later identified as belonging to a trans person.
Andrew Walz (@WalzRI)	Fake Republican candidate account	28 February 2020	Permanent	Tricking Twitter into blue check verifying a fake account of a Republican running for Congress in Rhode Island's 1st congressional district by a teenager.
Jack Burkman	Lobbyist and conspiracy theorist	19 March 2020	Permanent	Tweeted unevidenced claims about impending nationwide food shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic, following repeated infractions of Twitter rules, including making false statements about COVID-19.
Jaboukie Young-White	American comedian	23 March 2020	Temporary	Impersonating verified accounts such as CNN. Young-White's account was later restored, although it was stripped of its verified status.
Metawin Opas-iamkajorn	Thai actor	8 April 2020	Unknown	Unspecified.
Owen Shroyer (@allidoisowen) Rob Dew (@DewsNewz) Banned.Video (@BANNEDdotVIDEO)	InfoWars personalities	16 April 2020	Permanent	Promoting violence in a Texas rally against the stay-at-home order during the COVID-19 pandemic and evading the permanent suspension of Alex Jones and InfoWars.
Alex (@ALX)	Turning Point USA ambassador	17 April 2020	Permanent	Violating Twitter's manipulation and spam policy after sharing a meme of Xi Jinping generated by using Joe Biden's avatar generator from his website.
Candace Owens	American conservative activist	2 May 2020	Temporary	Banned after tweeting criticism of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order and encouraging the state's citizens to violate the directive.
Joey Salads	American conservative media personality	12 May 2020	Permanent	Violating Twitter's manipulation and spam policy.
@ANTIFA_US	Fake Antifa account	2 June 2020	Permanent	Calling for violence and engaging in platform manipulation and spam.
170,000 Chinese, 1,000 Russian, and 7,340 Turkish accounts		11 June 2020	Permanent	Found to be linked to propaganda and disinformation supportive of their respective governments.
Katie Hopkins	British columnist and far-right activist	19 June 2020	Permanent	Temporarily on 30 January 2020 possibly due to a tweet she made about rapper Stormzy. Permanently, for "violations of the hateful conduct policy" after she voiced opposition to a school program providing meals for hungry children.
Logan Cook (Carpe Donktum)	Pro-Trump meme account	23 June 2020	Permanent	Account suspended for half an hour on 14 October 2019 for sharing an edited scene from Kingsman: The Secret Service depicting Trump murdering journalists, politicians, and news outlets. Permanently banned for "repeated violations of this policy" after he created a fake CNN "racist toddlers" video of two toddlers, one black and one white, running toward each other and hugging, before running away together which Twitter added a "manipulated media" label on the video as racist. The video was taken down by Twitter following a copyright complaint made by the original content owner.
Distributed Denial of Secrets	Activist group	23 June 2020	Unknown	Publishing BlueLeaks, 269 gigabytes of internal US law enforcement data obtained by the hacker collective Anonymous, for "dissemination of hacked materials" and "information that could have put individuals at risk of real-world harm".
Graham Linehan	Television writer	27 June 2020	Permanent	Repeated acts of platform manipulation and hateful conduct towards transgender individuals.
Stefan Molyneux	Far-right activist and conspiracy theorist	7 July 2020	Permanent	Hateful content.
Over 50 accounts of white nationalist organizations from several countries		10 July 2020	Permanent	"Violating [Twitter's] policies in relation to violent extremism."
Various users		15 July 2020	Unknown	Posting screenshots of Twitter internal control panels following the 2020 Twitter bitcoin scam.
>150,000 QAnon-related accounts		21 July 2020	7,000 banned permanently, 150,000 limited	Engaged in harassment and brigading of other users and misinformation.
Talib Kweli	Rapper	23 July 2020	Permanent	Harassment.
16 pro-Jair Bolsonaro accounts		24 July 2020	Permanent	Removed on order of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil for allegedly promoting fake news including the accounts of Roberto Jefferson, Luciano Hang, Sara Winter, and others.
Wiley	Musician	25 July 2020	Permanent	Antisemitic comments.
Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr)	American businessman and eldest son of US President Donald Trump	28 July 2020	Temporary	Blocked for twelve hours for spreading the debunked claim that Hydroxychloroquine can prevent COVID-19.
David Duke	White supremacist and former KKK Grand Wizard	30 July 2020	Permanent	Temporarily suspended in August 2017 for association with the Unite the Right rally. Permanently suspended in July 2020 for hateful content.
Conservative Party of New York State	Political party	July 2020	Temporary	An automated spam filter had misidentified the party account as disseminating spam. Twitter undid the error on 10 September, two months after the erroneous suspension.
Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii)	Conservative pundit	14 August 2020	Permanent	Using an account to evade the suspension of another account.
The Babylon Bee NPC Daily Titania McGrath	Political satire accounts	17 August 2020	Temporary	Violating Twitter's manipulation and spam policy.
Guy Verhoftwat Jarvis DuPont Journalist Excellence Worldwide (@journalistew) Liberal Larry (@larrydaliberal) Sir Lefty Farr-Wright (@supportourlefty) Tolerance Police (@diversitypatrol)			Permanent
3,000 Chinese accounts		26 August 2020	Permanent	Part of a Chinese botnet known as "Dracula".
Unity 2020 (@ArticlesofUnity)	United States political movement	27 August 2020	Unknown	Considered "potentially harmful".
AlwaysActions (@AlwaysActions)	Conservative account	10 September 2020	Permanent	Violating Twitter's manipulation and spam policy after repeatedly sharing xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and hyper-partisan disinformation; US President Donald Trump promoted several of the account's tweets.
David Vance (@DVATW)	Right-wing blogger	10 September 2020	Permanent	Hateful content for repeated accusations of racism including harassing footballer Marcus Rashford.
Li-Meng Yan (@LiMengYAN119)	Chinese virologist	15 September 2020	Permanent	Linking to an upload of an unpublished pre-print paper claiming SARS-CoV-2 was made in a laboratory.
Kanye West (@kanyewest)	American rapper and US presidential candidate	16 September 2020	Temporary	Publishing the phone number of Forbes magazine editor Randall Lane.
About Hungary (@abouthungary)	Official account of the Government of Hungary	30 September 2020	Temporary	Unknown.
Remix News (@RMXnews)	Hungarian government-supported media publication		Permanent
Numerous suspicious accounts claiming to be Black supporters of Donald Trump		13 October 2020	Permanent	Violating Twitter's rules on spam and platform manipulation.
New York Post	Tabloid newspaper	15 October 2020	Temporary	Official account locked for tweeting articles alleging corruption and attempted collusion between Burisma and Joe Biden.
Charlie Kirk	Founder of Turning Point USA	17 October 2020	Temporary	Spreading misleading information about mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.
David Icke	English conspiracy theorist	4 November 2020	Permanent	Violating Twitter's rules regarding COVID-19 misinformation
Steve Bannon	Former White House Chief Strategist to Donald Trump	5 November 2020	Permanent	Banned after he called for Anthony Fauci and Christopher A. Wray to be beheaded on his podcast.

See also

• Internet censorship
• Censorship of Twitter
• Deplatforming
• Shadow banning